Return to Me
by legendarytobes
Summary: (Goes AU in the middle of 8.20 "Beast"): Clark is able to use Black Kryptonite to separate The Beast from Davis in the Fortress of Solitude and sucks both himself and Doomsday into the Phantom Zone. This leaves Chloe behind to deal with the fallout and bring him home. When her options start running out, she dares to trust Tess and her LuthorCorp resources...
1. Chapter 1

**Return to Me**

It burned me to do it.

How many times had I thrown Kryptonite away for him over the years, since I'd known his secret? Hell, I'd been doing this back at Luthor Mansion before I even knew that Clark wasn't actually a meteor mutant. Since then, I'd honestly lost count. Between the Luthors, Phantoms from the Zone, and weekly threats, I'd saved him so much that he owed me free lunches from now until well into the next decade.

I'd rarely used it against him.

I had a few times, which, granted, weren't his fault. The time he'd had an infection courtesy of Brainiac came to mind. That had been a day, to see the looks on Mr. and Mrs. Kent when they knew that I had been let in on the deep family secret. Still, this was different. I'd never pulled Kryptonite out on him when he was in his right mind.

He'd never understand this, what I was doing, why I was doing it.

Of course, he hadn't seen what I had. I didn't care if it was a dream, from what we knew of The Beast half of Davis, it was only a matter of time. I refused to watch the inevitable, to see Clark torn in half. I'd held him cold in my arms a few times before, but I didn't think Jor-El would be able to set something like that right. I no longer could, thanks to Brainiac. If Clark had ever woken up from seeing the person he loved-whom he'd technically died for-in pieces, then he'd understand all of this.

The key to the caves was heavy in my hand. I was the only one who knew where to find it. Not J'onn or Kara, even after her second departure. He'd never even told Lana after all that time she'd lived on the farm. I liked that. Deep down in the middle of all our bullshit and missed connections, of Jimmy and Lana and Davis, of the way he'd looked at me recently when I wore Lois's face, it flattered me how deeply he trusted me with his heritage and his mission. I was about to use that to betray him.

Swallowing hard, I slipped the disk into its slot and forced my eyes closed. The world felt like it was dissolving around me and the vertigo slammed into me hard. I stumbled as the chill Arctic air assaulted me, and forced my eyes open. Clark and Davis were already tangling with each other. I ducked behind a column as they ran into each other faster than I could see. They bounced back off one another and stilled, facing each other for another round. Gulping, I rushed forward and held the Kryptonite high.

The effect was immediate on Clark.

True to his word and ressurrection, the radiation did nothing to Davis.

As I watched, Clark's veins bulged from his skin and began to turn black, a green cast came over his skin, and he sank to his knees. Funny, once in ISIS, I'd told Lana that was what the agency's namesake had done to the great God Ra. After she'd used his powers to put Lois in the hospital, I'd always assumed and feared she'd do the same to Clark.

Nine months ago when he saved me from Black Creek, I never thought it would be me.

"Chloe!" he called out, and I hated myself.

Hated myself for doing this, for playing up the charade. Hated myself for letting Davis take my hand and offering a reassurring smile. I hated that I couldn't explain anything to him, but I hated it more that he'd try and be the hero like always even if I did come clean. I wouldn't let him die.

I owed him more than that.

"Clark, I can't. You can't condemn someone else to the Zone. Davis," I said, my voice struggling to stay even on the words. "He's innocent."

That was beyond debatable. There was a field of two hundred bodies in Smallville that said otherwise. Desperate to stop the Beast or not, Davis had started deliberately feeding it. He'd killed people willingly as a human. Still, I knew how the Zone worked. If Clark went there, he wouldn't come back, not after the Phantoms had come out and then again with Faora as well. He'd hunker down like Kara had, and the world would never see him again. Damn it, everyone needed the Blur.

I needed him, even if when this plan worked I'd never see or talk to him again.

"Chloe, I have to."

"You're not Jor-El," I said, shifting a little as Davis's clammy palm clamped harder on my hand. "You'd never forgive yourself, if you even came back."

"I...couldn't."

"I know," I replied, pulling Davis with me to the main console. I'd send us back to the caves and get a head start.

Getting there, brought us closer to Clark and he groaned but managed to stay upright. For a moment, we passed so close that I could almost touch him, and I wanted to. I couldn't. That would upset Davis, tip my hand, and I needed his compliance. I was never going to see him again or hug him, and before this we'd had one of the worst fights we'd ever had.

That burned.

Clark startled me then by grabbing onto my wrist.

"Don't."

Before I could answer, Davis pushed hard against his shoulder, sending Clark sprawling back. "She made her choice, Clark."

God had I.

We were at the console, and I was moving what I needed around to get back to the caves. Maybe there were a few islands of information left in my brain after all, even with the infection gone. The one thing Brainiac's infection hadn't completely ruined for me, although God knew he'd tried.

I was almost done and the glow was building through the Fortress when the Kryptonite in my hand started to burn. I screamed and dropped it. When I looked down, it was black.

Clark, his jacket covering his hands, raced forward and grabbed the black rock before I could get it. I noticed the amber glow dimming from his eyes, and wanted to scream. Just enough distance with Davis's push, and now he had neutralized the only thing I had to keep him out of this.

"Clark, please!"

Now I was begging, but it was too late.

He surged forward, and he slammed hard into Davis. The black Kryptonite flared almost purple in the Fortress and Davis screamed. I couldn't believe what I was watching, the way that the Beast-huge grey spikes and all-pulled from his chest, almost splitting his torso in half but at first stuck to the same set of still human legs. The light continued to grow and the Beast pulled harder against its confines, legs sprouting as well like some sort of arachnid nightmare.

The glare crescendoed and I fell to the ground as a concussion tore both halves of Davis apart. Clark was so ungodly fast now. I used to think it was annoying when he blurred off on me in high school or back at The DP. I could barely even process what was happening. The panel was humming now, the grey-blue haze of the zone swirling from it. The hole grew and, desperately, I threw myself in front of it.

"You go, and I go."

Clark was struggling hard with the Beast in his grip. The monster was technically in a headlock, and I figured only its own disorientation at being freed kept it close to manageable.

He looked at me and shook his head. "Not this time, Chlo."

"You can't hold him and move me at the same time."

"I don't have to," he said, nodding.

Strong arms, for a mortal, were around me. I flailed as best I could in Davis's grip, scratched and clawed at his arms, begged and screamed and pleaded. The one time ever that he and Clark agreed on anything and it was about me. Despite all I did, Davis was still a large guy and a paramedic. He was used to lifting people. It was easy to force me to the side, to hold me still as I watched my best friend, fuck, the man I _loved _dragged to Hell.

Davis didn't release me until long minutes after the portal had shut itself. When he did, I rushed to the console. We were back in the Kawatche Caves before Davis could blink or really understand what was happening. I surged past him, my eyes angry and brimming with tears. Not now, I needed to get to my car and get to the loft. I'd get the crystal from the loft. I'd get that, and I'd find J'onn, and then he'd tell me how to use it, and I'd go after Clark myself.

"Chloe, wait."

"No, don't you dare," I said, scrambling through the narrow passages and rushing to my door. "You helped him!"

"And I know the Beast better than anyone else," he said, as he whipped me around to face him.

Reaching up, he cupped my cheek. I shuddered. The attraction between us was gone. Most of it had left when Brainiac was gone from me, but after that field and the dreams, now that only just Davis, paramedic sociopath remained. No, there was no affection there. The hopeful look in his eyes, so like he'd been the day he'd kissed me before my disastrous wedding, said his desire for me was as fervent as it had ever been.

"Chloe, Clark's gone."

"I'm getting him back," I said, yanking my arm away.

"You can't. There's no way to open that whatever it was."

"Phantom Zone. You know nothing, and you don't have a part in this, not anymore. Congratulations. Clark did figure out a cure all on his own. So now, him? Me? We are officially _not_ your problem."

Davis reached for me again, and I dodged him. Quickly, I unlocked the car and opened my door. "Chloe, everything we wanted...Clark's gone, and Jimmy's in Coast City at rehab, not to mention the divorce."

"I don't want you, Davis."

It shocked me how fast he could move, even without Kryptonian additions. He was holding me by my shoulders and pinning me to a car. It was so pathetic, so desperate, that I rolled my eyes before I could think about it. I'd been threatened by everyone from Brainiac to Lionel Luthor, this wasn't even in my top ten.

I brought my knee up, hard, tired of his games.

Davis groaned and stumbled back. It gave me enough time to pull the taser from my jacket pocket. The electricity arcced between its ends, blue and fierce. "I said, I'm done."

He hopped again and I reached out to stun him, surprised a bit when he fell unconscious to the ground before I reached him. Looking down, I saw the dart embedded in his back, I was not surprised to find Tess Mercer coming out from behind a tree.

"You can thank me later. Should I have my labs take him?" She emphasized her point by nudging his back with the tip of her boot. "My team will love to get a look at him."

I flinched and fought back my own anger and revulsion. She'd spent the better part of a year like Lex before her begging Clark to confess all his secrets to her, trying to convince both of us that she wanted to only help. Her curiosity, her clinical detachment when looking at what she still assumed was an alien chilled me. I wondered if she'd wanted Clark in that place as badly, if all her talk about the good he could do was so much bullshit.

"He's not the Beast."

Tess narrowed her eyes at me. I'd give her this, for a relatively new corporate scion, she did condescension almost as well as Lex or Lionel. "Don't lie. I'm not stupid, Chloe, and I can trace a pattern."

"He was," I corrected. "But he's not now. Clark and he fought...I...Clark did something and now he's not."

"Not possible, not if Davis can survive the severe meteor rock bath you gave him or so Oliver mentioned."

"I can't give you the details."

"Why not? Clark knows that I know he's special, that he's the Blur as sure as both of us are sitting here. If he did something, then you can explain what."

"Trust me, I could tell you the words, but you wouldn't get it anyway, too many blanks. Besides, you're more than eager to cut into Davis to see what makes him tick and, currently, he's perfectly human."

"Admitting Clark's not?"

"Admitting," I continued. "That if you're this excited over what you think is more than human, then I don't want to know what would happen if you had concrete proof that Clark and The Blur are the same guy."

"Again, I'm not stupid."

"No, but I don't trust you any more than I ever trusted Lex."

"I'm not Lex. He uses people."

"That's all Luthors know how to do," I responded coolly. "Trust me, I've graduated that school. Fine, then let me go. Davis...he's human now but he is the Cornfield Killer."

"No really," she drawled. "So, you don't want my help except under very specific circumstances? I can help get rid of the trash."

"No," I said, my voice tight. "I didn't say kill him _or _experiment on him. You'd be disappointed."

"Well, I'll make sure, first, it's a waste of time."

"Just turn him over to Detective Sawyer. I don't have time to babysit him, not now. Clark needs me." This time, I at least made it into the car and buckled up before she tapped on the window. "What!" I shouted after starting the car and rolling down the window.

Tess shook her head, "Not even a 'thank you?' No wonder Lex got sick of this town."

"Chloe, I thought you knew about the crystal."

I was sitting on J'onn's sofa, a large afghan over my lap. He'd offered me that along with a cup of coffee that I wasn't thirsty enough to touch. Maybe that was a first for me. I'd driven directly to Metropolis and his apartment when I frantic search of both the loft and Clark's house had failed to turn up the crystal he'd once used on Zod. I knew it was there. It had to be there.

J'onn had to know; he was powerless but still Clark's guardian, even now.

"Chloe," he started again, patting my hand. I stilled. J'onn was trying to comfort me. I didn't need that. I just needed him to direct me to the crystal and tell me the on switch. There wouldn't be anything to worry about once Clark was home. "Kal-El's crystal was destroyed by Faora and he had to use mine to get rid of her."

"Great so it's not in the loft. Is it in his desk at The Planet? I know Clark can be sloppy, and I'll talk to him about where to keep his extraterrestrial goodies later. You'd think he'd understand that reporters, even in the basement, can be dangerous to Kryptonians by now."

"You're not letting me finish."

"You're drawing it out," I countered.

"Faora destroyed his so he took mine, but then The Persuader destroyed that when the Legion was here."

I blinked. Everything between the final onslaught of the Brainiac infection and then waking up in my own bloodied wedding dress was hazy at best. I could remember some things, oddly Clark walking me to the aisle sticks out but not actually saying my vows to Jimmy. Also, yes, Davis's kiss. Everything once Brainiac had me fully under his control was a blur though, and I had no idea what a Persuader was.

"Huh?"

"The villain from the future sent to kill Kal-El before he could fulfill his destiny. He destroyed the crystal in the loft, and that's why...nevermind."

"No, why what?"

"Kal-El might be in the Phantom Zone but if he ever got back he'd be mad that I told you."

I leaned up and glared back at him. "I'll be more pissed if you don't. Besides, I don't have time for this. I have to get Clark out."

"The portal is there. You know he got back before. If he chooses to use the portal where Kara did not, then he will."

"And he could be stubborn and never come back for 'the greater good.' J'onn, unless you have anything else to offer me, I have an amazing amount of research to do to rescue our resident martyr."

"The Legion had different ideas on how to deal with the host," he confessed, leaning back in his chair.

"Me, you mean. Say what you mean."

"It doesn't matter now. There's nothing you can do to get Kal-El back. He's on his own."

"And we wait? Oliver's crazy and is going around murdering people. You're, well, you're like me and both our abilities are D.O.A., and the rest of the League is disbanded. Without Clark, Metropolis has nothing to protect it."

"And, honestly, I do believe he'll come home. I don't think he'll make the same choice that Kara did, but it'll take time and you know that in the Zone-"

"Time moves differently," I repeated, rolling my eyes. "That's not good enough. If it takes him time, he could be gone months or years." The thought of him passing me by, of not getting back on accident until twenty years or a hundred from now made me nauseated. "I won't do that."

J'onn stood up and walked back to the island in his kitchen. He poured himself a second cup of coffee and gestured toward mine. "It'll help you think."

"I don't need to think. J'onn, isn't there anything else? Are there other Kryptonians? Other resources? Come on, think!"

"I'm sorry, Chloe. If Kal-El comes, he does it on his own."

One month.

That was one month of walking by The Planet and expecting Clark to be there, working away at my old desk. That was one month of reaching for my phone and pressing the speed dial on his number first thing in the morning and remembering he couldn't possibly answer it. It was one month of racking what was left in my brain from the infection and then digging into Swan's journals as well as Clark's steamer trunk, hoping I'd stumble onto something. I wished I still had that crystal that I'd had back when Faora had overtaken Lois, but that had shattered. I was on my own with dead ends, and the aching, bone deep loneliness.

Davis was in jail, awaiting his trial for the Cornfield Killings, and Oliver had left long ago for Star City. Good riddance, he'd blackmailed me for things Brainiac had forced me to do, and stooped to murder. Lex was awful, don't get me wrong, but he deserved to go to jail as Lionel once had. If we stared killing the criminals instead of turning them over to the law, we should just rename ourselves "vengeance" instead of justice.

Of course, that would imply we existed in any form at all, which we didn't. Sometimes J'onn came by my office at ISIS to talk with me, and, to be fair, Bart had taken me out for tacos last week to ask how my "finding Stretch" project was coming, but otherwise, we were closed down. Without our strongest players on deck in J'onn and Clark and without Oliver's financing, we were dead in the water.

Lana was gone who knew where with her infection and powers, and Jimmy was out of my life, which after his Facebook messages I wasn't even sad about. I honestly don't think I'd have said yes to the engagement without Brainiac in my head and certainly would have never said yes without my memory full of holes. The fact he'd stolen from me and insulted me alleviated any guilt I had about injuried the Beast had given him.

I at least assumed that as I searched for Clark that I'd have Lois in my life. She shocked the Hell out of me by moving to the Star City Register so she could rekindle things with Oliver. She mentioned that with The Blur gone, Metropolis no longer seemed as exciting. I'd waved Clark's absence away as best as claiming it was an extended visit to see his mom. Mrs. Kent had played into that fiction, and Lois, seemingly with nothing left for her here and Tess breathing down her neck, had left to the familiar, to Oliver.

We talked nightly, but I never had anything to say. I could only talk generally about my patients, and there was nothing else that consumed my days but Clark. I would find him; it was what I did.

I just was out of ideas.

Digging through Clark's chest for the hundredth time, hoping frantically that some alien mcguffin had been left behind that I'd somehow missed the first ninety-nine times, I found nothing. The only things besides the key to the caves and Swan's journals were Smallville momentos-his letterman jacket from senior year, things Mr. Kent had given him, an old yearbook.

Silly sentimentality was overwhelming tonight. I'd come to the farm from Belle Reve. Despite all my best efforts, one of my patients had used their pyrokinesis to almost burn down their high school. I'd had to sign them over. Belle Reve wasn't completely the hell-hole it had once been, but it wasn't anything I wanted to send someone to if I could avoid it. This was the fourth patient I'd had, including the shadow shifter back in the fall, who'd hurt people or gone as far as killing. I needed to stop kidding myself, maybe.

I wasn't a counselor. Hell, the one thing I'd wanted more than anything was to get rid of my own powers and I almost had, going as far as to almost getting my heart cut out.

Still, I had helped ease Clark through a lot of crap in his life, and I knew what it was like to fear your mutation and the possible madness building inside of you. Lana had left me with a foundation that was a thinly veiled excuse to spy on Lex and do experiments as with Casey Brock, who Brainiac had infected two years ago. I'd worked hard to get real, helpful staff and to do what I could. Hell, I was already blacklisted thanks to Lex, and someone had to keep these kids from turning into supervillains in their own right.

Especially with Justice disbanded and Clark gone.

I sucked at what I did, but if I didn't do it, Metropolis and Lowell County would suffer more for it.

But watching that girl's blank glazed over look as they took her away, it felt too much like my mom. Even if Clark wasn't here right now, even if I'd known I wouldn't find my magic bullet tonight, I needed the comfort of the loft. Hard memories were here, but so were some of my best. Even if this is where the Beast had waged havoc, or I'd seen Clark kiss Lana before Lex and Helen's wedding, even then, well, it had all really started here, hadn't it?

Tired, I reached out and picked up the yearbook. As crappy as I felt, as bone weary, I smiled paging through it. The superlatives page hurt a bit, both to see the class have hope for Clark, even in a jock strap capacity as most likely to be in the NFL (if only they knew how badly Clark would fail any physical) and to see me as someone who was bound to succeed. Hadn't seemed like it one damn bit this year or since Lex fired me. Still, as I flipped through, I felt that warmth again, that happiness. There was a collage of just candid shots at high school and goofy student poses, no real theme.

There was Clark, towering over me like always, but smiling broadly in a way I hadn't seen him do since before he'd quit college. The expression on my face was about as naive and hopeful. The words below that bit even deeper.

_Best friends._

Best friends would save each other. He got shot for me, came to Black Creek without powers or a prayer, had fought back Brainiac to bring me back to myself. He'd saved me so many times, and I'd never been able to really save him. I'd had my shot, but I'd bungled it miserably.

So far.

Screw it. I wasn't going to fail _I _couldn't find it alone and J'onn couldn't do it, I'd go to someone who had the means and probably had pored endlessly over her predecessor's work. If I had to tell her everything, so be it. Clark could yell at me when he was home.

It'd be about like when he left.

Pulling out my phone, I dialed the main office for The Planet, spoke quickly with the secretary and waited for the person I wanted to be put on the line.

"Chloe, pleasant surprise. It's as if you noticed the barrage of voicemails I left you after I found out you and Clark managed to cure Davis or, hell, the emails and couriers I started sending after Clark dropped off the face of the planet."

"Operative word, Tess."

"Now you're interested?" she was practically purring on the other end.

"I'm desperate. Help me find Clark, please."

"Depends."

Slow, deliberate. Bitch was enjoying this.

"On?"

"You know. I can't help you with vague clues and no direction. You tell me _everything_ you know about Clark, and all of LuthorCorp's resources are yours, everything also that Lex and Lionel left to me privately about the Traveler. Just confirm it for me."

It ate at every instinct I had to say anything. Hell, I'd had the DDS beat me senseless once over his secret. But I couldn't protect Clark either if he was in an alien wasteland. Ignoring the burning in my gut, I gripped the spine of the yearbook harder, and spoke:

"Everything you and Lex ever suspected is true. Tell me where to meet you and we'll get our partnership started."

_Clark, forgive me._


	2. Chapter 2

**C****hapter Two - Wasteland**

Even if it was a place I'd been twice before, the Phantom Zone wasn't a place you got used to. After the portal opened, I woke up and found myself face down in one of the million sand dunes. My muscles were sore, and my left shoulder was throbbing from where Davis had pushed me. Normally, if I were still home, something like even from a being as powerful as Davis had been, would heal up on its own.

Now it was settling into a deep ache and would only get worse under the weird blue-grey light of the Zone.

Wheezing slightly, I forced myself up and looked around. I hadn't expected the Beast to be near me. If we'd landed in the same spot together, it would have torn me apart by now. Without yellow sunlight, I doubted it was as strong as I'd felt it be at Chloe's wedding. That still didn't mean that it wasn't a giant monster with razor claws and fangs. Even at my best, I'd barely been able to lay a hand on it. If it found me here, I'd be ribbons.

Thank God for whatever small favor our separation was.

I knew to start I'd been risking that guess, basing it only on Lois and I landing apart the last time I got sucked in here.

If I'd been wrong...

Well, I wasn't and it didn't matter. If I had been wrong, then no one in Metropolis would have suffered anymore either way, then Chloe wouldn't be drawn to that monster's every need. Or to Davis. There was a symmetry to it all, if it had gotten that bad, that everything left of Krypton, everything that could hurt Earth, was gone one way or the other, me included.

It hadn't panned out that way, which I preferred.

Reaching up, I wasn't even surprised when my palm came back with blood on it. Flinching, I touched the top of my left eyebrow again and hissed. Managed to cut the Hell out of my face too, apparently, just falling here. Brushing it away as best I could, I then used that hand to shield my eyes and started marching forward into the desert. The portal was in a cave system. Lois and I had found it before, and Raya had known where it was. There had to be a way to get back. As dangerous as it was to let Phantoms loose again, as better as it would be to just stay here forever like Kara tried to do, I knew I couldn't do that.

Lex might be dead and Brainiac and the Beast done for now. It didn't mean that Metropolis wasn't full of crime, weird crap didn't come for the League on a semi-annual basis, and that Chloe and my mom were alone and defenseless. Maybe if I were a better man, someone who could let go and hope that J'onn or someone else could take my slack, maybe I'd stay holed up here. Maybe I'd keep any chance of phantoms escaping low.

I wasn't.

The last thing I wanted was to live in his hell hole where the day never ended, the heat was burning into me, and everything felt a million times harder because I was just a guy here. Not to mention one surrounded by the worst criminals my...Kryptonians had ever found. I didn't think I could become some caveman like warrior with spears and dreads like Kara. I didn't want to be forced to try, either.

I walked for hours, heading what I hoped was towards the caves I'd found once before. It wasn't like I had a compass on me, and this wasn't Earth. Tricks my dad taught me long ago on the farm, like finding moss on the north side of trees or following the sunset. The sun never set here, just offered a sickly, dying glow. It occurred to me that the farther I walked, the more the same everything looked. It was one dune after another, and I was beginning to gasp in heavy breaths, my throat dry and rough.

I'd have to start thinking about finding something to drink too. I wouldn't make it to the portal if I didn't find something for this problem first. Normally, okay so I'd never really explained this to Chloe or Lana, but normally at this point in my life, I didn't have to eat or drink anything. I mean, I know I eat. I did in high school and such and had genuinely felt hungry then, especially as I grew. I can't honestly remember the last time I was actually hungry. I think the last thing I can remember was the summer after I saved Reeves Dam. That summer had been terrible. I thought Lana had died, my mom was off in D.C., and besides working the farm, I didn't do much of anything. While I could make feeding the animals, especially Shelby, a top priority. I hadn't really been interested in cooking for myself.

Not that I couldn't.

For beyond obvious reasons, it's not like I had any sisters and mom had wanted to teach someone how to cook. That all fell to me. Considering how terrible _both_ Sullivan-Lane cousins were, it was for the best.

Still, I remember feeling so hungry one morning while mucking out stalls that I'd almost been to distracted and tired to finish. Frying up some eggs after, it occurred to me that I hadn't eaten or drunk anything in over a week. Weird, but normal too if you were me. Again, food was good, and when I had Thanksgiving or something big like that with mom having cooked? Yeah, I ate a lot of that.

But I was just normal here and everyone needed water in the desert. There had to be supplies. I guess Jor-El helped rationalize creating this place by giving people enough to survive, if they scrounged for it. The odds, especially considering the other inmates were violent psychopaths, sucked. They still existed, though, and that technically made exile here not murder. Jor-El was above that, but I wasn't sure eternal exile to a desert of murderers and worse was actually better.

The heat continued to blaze on as I walked, and I was dripping sweat, my t-shirt almost suffocating my body. I stumbled, groaned as the sand covered my arms, and struggled back up. The wind was howling, which made me nervous. It was hard to see in the sand that whipped up and if I couldn't hear much at all, less considering my usual hearing, then that was worse. I was a sitting duck.

After what felt like forever and my legs barely wanting to work, I did find a group of caves. I got a second wind, sprinting to them, hoping I'd get to the portal and be home in no time. I was panting by the time I got inside the first one, and I really hadn't gotten how sick my teammates were or how much they ached during football practice. Kansas in the summer was hot and if this was anyhwhere close to that feeling of exhaustion and dehydration, then, yeah, I was a crappy actor. There's no way I'd ever come close to faking tired either.

The cave was cold at least and a small stream flowed through it. I knew it was a terrible idea to drink the water, who knew what lived in it. The first time I'd ever been here, I came back with a cold that left my powers fizzling out and me sneezing barn doors to the county line. That would probably give me space dysentery.

Perfect.

Ignoring it and telling my throat to just drop it, I started hunting for the portal. Frustrated when it wasn't in this cave, I searched the next. And the next. Then more.

There were seven caves in this group and the most any of them held was the river I was desperate to drink out of by now, no matter how suicidal. My heart sank, and I pushed away my own panic. I'd figure this out. I'd found it before, although, never alone. But I'd never get anything done if I panicked. At least for right now everyone I cared about was safe. It wasn't as bad as last time, terrified the world would end before I got back to fight Zod.

Exhausted from the stress of my fight with Chloe, my actual battle with Davis, and hours after hours of walking, I sank to the ground in the cave with the stream. The water, for what it was worth, was clear and its sound was so tempting.

"I can't go home if I can't walk," I said, just something to break up the monotony of the gurgling stream. "God, don't make me sick."

The water was cool and no worse than the swimming hole I'd swum in as a kid in the back forty. It didn't mean much. It's not like I could taste bacteria, even with my abilities. Actually, for what it's worth, while I have a lot better hearing and eyesight, my taste seems probably pretty the same. At least, it never seemed to get to absurd levels like when I was in high school, not at all like the migraines with my superhearing.

Smell, uh.

That's something else.

Look, a lot of people need to bathe better, that's all I'm saying.

I sipped long and hard, taking advantage of the rest I needed, even if I still wished there were fish or crabs or something edible in the water too. Not that I had a way to make a fire. I'd never been a boy scout, no matter what Oliver found funny, and I'd not been big on camping. I hated just the fishing trips with dad as a kid. And, let's face it, when you could set things on fire by just looking at them by fifteen, having matches or lighters on you seemed sort of useless.

I wished I'd taken up smoking now.

Shivering a little as my skin cooled, I curled up as best I could and tried to sleep. Who knew how much farther I had to go to find the actual portal or, worse, who I'd find along the way.

It wasn't a who that found me.

It was a what.

A giant, freaking what.

The thing that woke me was the hot, heavy breath on my cheek. That and slobber landing on my neck. I opened my eyes and tried to jump up, terrified that the Beast had found me after all. I'd be stupid to think Zod's creation would stop hunting for "Kal-El" so easily. For what it was worth, the thing before me wasn't the Beast. It reminded me of what might happen if you crosssed a grizzly bear and an alligator. It had a massive build with thick shaggy fur that was bright orange. Its massive paws with claws the size of Exacto knife blades, and one set were digging into my left shoulder, keeping me pinned. The snout it had was long, like a crocodile or barracuda and it hung open.

Shit.

I tried to buck it off of me, putting all the strength I did have into it. Mercifully, its grip slipped for just an instant, I took that time to roll out from under it and start running. Of course of all the caves I'd found, I'd picked the occupied one. I guess the monster muppet liked cool cave water too.

Perfect.

The bastard was fast, too. Not like I would normally be, not like a blur, but it had long strides and was catching up to me, no matter how hard I was sprinting for the mouth of the cave. It slammed into my back before long, which sent me flying. I don't think that was its intention. It probably had been hoping to make a full pounce and hold me down again for a final bite. I took the pathetica advantage I had and rushed to the rocks near me. I picked up as many as I could hold and started chucking them at it.

The first throw struck the thing in one red compound eye. It hissed and something thick and black started to pour from its face.

And dad hadn't wanted me to play.

The other shots, while still good, never managed the damage of the first surprise. I hit its snout a few times, but that must have been a thick skin because it never flinched at that. I tried for the other eye but the creature was smart enough now to duck to deflect it or bat at my best shot with his paws. I launched the last one in my palm and started looking at my feet for more.

I was running out.

I grabbed the last one I could manage to lift and hurled it for one more desperate shot at its functioning right eye.

The creature flicked out a forked tongue and just leapt over the damn thing and landed on me again.

Desperate, I tried to struggle in its grasp, but its grip was tighter now and its head held back. It had been unaware of what I could do twice. It wasn't going to make a third mistake. The thing hissed like a cat and then bit my left hand. Needle teeth dug into the flesh, lacerating it and I screamed.

The monster dropped it and flicked it's tongue again.

My stomach felt heavy and cold.

We'd had barn cats since I was a kid. I hadn't been allowed to pet them until I was at least seven, long story but basically why you'd think I couldn't. I'd watched them a lot, though. Some of my earliest memories, back from when even, I think, English was still fuzzy for me, were of watching them play with their kills.

This creature was going to enjoy this, stretch it out. Maybe it didn't see a lot of fun around here.

That reinvigorated me. I kept struggling, ignoring the way my hand burned and ached, and worked as hard as I could to keep my neck out of the thing's snapping jaws. It was coming for my right arm now, and I wondered if this time it would take a chunk.

I closed my eyes but kept struggling. I really didn't want to see my hand taken off. That didn't happen, though. Instead, suddenly the monster screamed and scurried off me. I didn't waste my moment. Pushing myself up with my good hand, I turned and started running for the opening. It didn't confuse me at all to see a woman standing there, dressed in what reminded me a bit of buckskin and with a bow before her. She was firing arrows off with a speed and skill that would make even Oliver jealous.

As I watched, she landed three arrows in the monster's back before taking out its good eye.

After that, it was short work for her to run up to it and slit its throat with a long machete-like blade she carried. She turned to me after the thing died, her left arm still covered in black blood from where she'd finished it off. She was tall, easily as tall as Lois if not a bit taller than that. Her hair was long and straight black like Lana's before she'd given it the world's dumbest haircut before coming back to Smallville this year, but her complexion was very pale and her eyes an unnatural blue.

They glowed almost...no, _exactly_ the way that Aethyr and Nam-Ek's had when I'd encountered them.

Huh, I never understood why some of the Kryptonians did that but Raya and Kara and I, among others, never did.

Glaring back at her, I tried to cross my arms over my chest, but hissed at the pain in my lacerated hand when it touched my arm. Letting them drop back to my sides, I just shook my head. "Let me guess, Kryptonian, right?"

She smirked and put her weapon back in its sheath at her thigh. I looked away politely. Did I ever mention that it's now more odd for me _not_ to have my eyes itch and burn when I see an objectively attractive woman than it was for them to be just normal? Yeah, I really don't get my powers much either.

"Kal-El, you're not someone I'd expect to see here."

"Does everyone know me?"

"You'd be a fool not to. Maybe you've heard this before, you look exactly like your father."

"Oh, believe me, I know," I replied, swallowing heavily. "He sentence you here?"

"Oh Jor-El was most efficient," she said, taking a few steps closer to her. I didn't back up, wouldn't cede ground, but I did wish I had a weapon. "He liked to give out the sentences in person for every one of us who were sent to the Zone. It was his baby, after all."

"I'm aware, believe me."

"You're too young to be him, but I know time moves weirdly here. What, did you grow up and anger daddy?"

"Huh?"

"Maybe you're a criminal? Maybe you're actually interesting."

Oh, she didn't know. How could she? Could have been in here for half a century, the way time worked here. She'd been sent here long before Krypton had exploded. Hell, probably years before I'd even been born.

"You don't know, do you?"

"What?"

"There is no Krypton. It blew up. Zod ruined it."

"You're going to get hungry," she said, handing me a hunk of the creature that she'd cooked over a fire.

She carried a pack with her, hand sewn from the same not-quite-leather of her outfit. I'd give Dara credit, she was as prepared as I was outclassed. She'd had flint and used some spare rags to start a fire, cleaned part of the corpse, and prepared food. It smelled awful, but I also hadn't eaten in a long time and was beyond exhausted.

Reluctantly, I bit into it and ignored the rubbery bitter taste in my mouth. It was still better than octopus the time Chloe had convinced me to try sushi, and I'm supposed to be the weird one. "Ugh, I cannot wait to get out of here."

"No one gets out. Those are the rules of the Zone."

"I'll figure something out," I replied, skating around the truth of the portal.

She quirked her head at me and her scrutiny was intense, easily matched Tess levels. Not Lex, he had had his own category for that, was his Olympic caliber skill. Still, this wasn't a dumb woman either. "Then it's true, isn't it?"

"That I'll find what I need, somehow, yeah."

Dara snorted. She'd been nice enough to share the "food" with me and to not kill me. That put her above all other Kryptonian criminals I'd ever met. It didn't mean I wanted her to know there was an escape hatch out there to open, if you had me or my blood with you.

"I heard some say that about three years ago some of us escaped and that Faora had too. I was glad for that. Even with no body, Zod's wife was always a bitch and a pain. She really enjoyed tearing through other people, just zooming right into them."

I shuddered. The Zone was a place where even the phantoms packed a wallop, could fly into you and disable you. I'd felt it myself.

"See, the PZ has its ways."

"The few who saw Faora escape last time, well, they'd said it was El blood that Jor-El's bitch niece did it."

"Her name is Kara, and she's my cousin for one. For a second, never heard of that, must have been another way she left."

"You, Kal-El, are a terrible liar. It's true, isn't it? That El blood," she said, eying my left hand. The wound had stopped bleeding but was still crusted over in my blood's dried remains.

"No."

She shrugged. "Well, fine then. It's a shame, I know where the portal is, that crest is ugly and hard to miss."

The version the portal was built from was the same that had been on Kara's bracelet or my old crystal before Faora ruined it. For what it was worth, that one I liked. The figure-8 like one that had been on one of the stones that had made the Fortress? That one I hated. It was hard to look at anything that had been burned into you like an animal and not get angry at the sight of it.

"You've seen it?"

No, I wasn't being too eager. I was just tired, sore, mauled and worried. I didn't need to be there right now, not if it meant a criminal I'd never met came with me.

"Hmm, so we have an impasse. You have something I need, as I assume I can't just kill you and drain your blood. It'd be foolish if Jor-El had designed it to react to dead blood. Your father was an asshole, but he wasn't an idiot."

"He's not my...I mean he is, technically, but I was adopted."

"Yes, because Krypton's gone, Zod destroyed it, but not before you were sent away as a baby to some primitive planet and ended up here anyway even though you won't elaborate on that. Makes perfect sense."

I sighed and set my food, such as it was down. "I'm sorry. I know it wasn't likely you were ever getting out of here anyway, and, not to be mean, but if you're like everyone else I've ever met here then maybe that's for the best. Still, there's no Krypton to go back to now."

"The war was bad and the crust did shift, but there was no way it was the end."

"To be honest, depending on how many of the criminals here are actually from Krypton originally-"

"Not as many as you'd think."

"Oh."

"Yeah, well you, me, my cousin Kara, and whoever is left in the Zone are all that's left of Krypton."

"So getting thrown in here on trumped up charges did save my life, unreal," she replied, leaning against the wall.

"Trumped up?" I asked, curious. "Look, I get all of this second hand from this Martian I know and my cousin, but..."

"Red-eyes are ugly bastards, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't know. J'onn can't shift right now, and he never showed me before. He can be very serious, but he's nice to me too and tries really hard. Hell, he's saved my life a couple times now. Still, I got the impression from him and Kara that if you were sent to the Zone, you earned it."

"Well, what would you know then? Kara's an 'El' and J'onn worked for your father. Why would they ever see anything but perfection in him?"

"My uncle and father didn't exactly get along," I conceded, figuring it was far too complicated to explain about my actual dad and have her believe me. Apparently, Kryptonians hadn't visited Earth in a very long time, except Lara, before I was sent. Most didn't think the powers were a trade-off for being with 'primitives.' God, a lot of the time, I really believed, me and Kara aside, that if Kryptonians were that snotty and full of themselves, then the universe was better off without them. "If you think Kara was gonna be nice about Jor-El or have rose-colored opinions of him, there's no way that's true."

"Whatever. In the last days, not that I knew they were, the Council was very busy with the war and with the planet's instability."

"I can imagine," I drawled. That wasn't completely untrue. Mom said I'd had nightmares a lot as a kid and would wake up screaming about everything on fire and earthquakes. I guess for a while part of me had remembered something at least. "So what does that have to do with your so-called innocence?"

"Wow, you really are Jor-El's son."

"No, I'm really not," I said, my tone terse.

I was the last person on Earth, much to the AI's frustration, to rule anything with strength. He'd been helpful to me when I'd needed to stop Brainiac with Chloe, had even taken her memories at my request to give her a normal life. At least this year, he hadn't branded me or brainwashed me or murdered people I cared about...so tha was possibly a sign our relationship was improving.

"Then prove it. Hear me out. He'd just be a pompous judgemental ass."

"Well, I listen."

No, I don't care what Lex or Tess would tell you. They're evil and run or did run a corporation that abducts mutants and makes secret super soldiers. They had their chances and blew them.

"Then, there were bigger worries for the Council to handle. The common crimes didn't seem as big a problem when there was genocide so the law enforcement that was there was overworked and stretched too thin. People started being put in prison and even in the Zone who weren't guilty of either the crimes they committed or, frankly, of crimes that warranted it. I was a thief, sure. I specialized in corporate espionage. If one tech company or branch of the Kandorian government had break throughs other competitors or city-state's wanted, then I was your best bet."

"Then you admit you're a thief."

"Yes, but I was never violent, never hurt anyone. You have to admit, whether it saved my life or not, that being banished to the Phantom Zone, an eternal hell, wasn't the right punishment for stealing a few data chip secrets for the highest bidder."

"Jor-El wasn't like that. I don't think he'd go over the top on you if nothing was wrong."

She laughed long and hard, her hair falling into her face. "Really, I don't know much about you, and maybe you love your pet humans very much."

"They're not pets."

"They're not us, either, Kal-El. They're lacking."

"And I didn't miss this, not at all. I've never met a Kryptonian, not even Kara, who wasn't over impresse with how amazing we were. Well, we're not around anymore so we must have had some flaws."

"Maybe, but we are better than the monkeys on Earth. I've heard a few are fun for a bit of sex, maybe, and the powers were a perk if I've heard right."

"You didn't."

Her eyes glittered, and I shifted nervously.

"You really aren't a criminal. I don't know how you got sucked in here, what bogus 'family heirloom' you touched, but you're the worst liar I've ever met. It's true too, what they say about the yellow sun. Even if you weren't a shit liar, I'd know by looking at you. You're hardly prepared for a place like this."

"I-"

"And you're hopeless. Who doesn't carry some kind of weapon on them? Especially on Earth."

"Well we can't all be criminals or violent."

"Right, not even a knife in case. Yeah, powers and a portal. Look, I know where the portal is. I'll show you if you let me come with you to Earth."

I frowned back at her and eased myself as best I could to the floor. It was time to sleep. "I can't do that. The portal rumor isn't true."

"No," she snapped, lying down on the other side of the bonfire and facing away from me. "You're lying. You might love your humans but you wouldn't so badly if whatever you knew of Jor-El you actually trusted. So you know he was as corrupt as I do. I don't deserve to rot here."

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breathing, on getting rest since I'd have to start out early to find my escape. The AI had abused me for five years, and I'd always hoped it was messed up and the actual man had been better. Maybe I was wrong.

But whatever I was, I couldn't let Dara out.

It was so hot when I woke up.

It was so unbearably hot and that didn't feel like the Zone as I knew it. It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't scorching like I felt now. The closest I'd ever felt like this was with the mold spores in sophomore year. Blinking awake, I tried to sit up but started coughing. Ugh, my chest ached and each breath was labored, like breathing through water. My head swum and I laid down again. If I couldn't even sit up, my walking out of here wasn't very likely either.

"You look like immortal hell."

I groaned. Dara was rapidly starting to tie with Lois as one of the most annoying women I knew. No, sratch that, one of the most annoying people I knew, period.

"Thanks," I croaked out, and then grimaced. It hurt to talk.

How did humans deal with this kind of thing every so often? It sucked.

"No, you look really bad, Kal-El. I want out, that's true, but if you don't have me help you then you don't have long."

"It's a fever. I tend to get colds in the Zone. It's not a death sentence."

She snorted and gestured to my left hand.

Confused, I looked down and winced. It was swollen and red, and the skin closest to the bite marks was oozing pus. "Oh shit." I'd been too tired last night to clean the wound after dinner, not that I knew if the water was actually sanitary. For a while, I ignored Dara as I forced myself to crawl-standing without being dizzy was a pipe dream- and dunked my hand in the water. The old, crusted blood sloughed off.

Frustrated and desperate to protect my hand, I took off my shirt, which was dirty but at least dry, and wrapped it around my wound. It wasn't a great idea, but it was better than getting sand particles in it as I walked. I leaned against the rock wall nearest me and forced myself off, leaning against it till the vertigo fled.

When I looked back toward her, I noticed Dara lick her lips and eye my chest. "Well, that's unexpected. I guess doing chores or whatever you do on Earth must keep you in very fine condition."

"Not interested," I replied bluntly. "I don't need your help."

With that I pushed off from the wall and made it about six steps before the dizziness overpowered me and I fell to one knee.

Dara said nothing but walked over to me and leaned down. She draped one arm over her shoulder and I let her, curious to see where this was going.

"First, you will be. You can't tell me you've never wanted to with one of your own, unless you and your cousin follow decidedly old ways."

"No," I said, gritting my teeth at such a thought. "Never, and it's none of your business."

"Oh, I've got the time to wear you down," she replied, chuckling. "Besides, your hand really is seriously infected. You can see the way it weeps for yourself. If you don't get out of here and very soon, you'll be dead. So spiting me isn't worth the price now is it?"

"You swear you're just a thief?"

She smiled back at me, and I didn't feel that much better. Chloe and Tess both had an expression like that, a Mona Lisa grin that usually meant they'd come up with an idiotic plan and couldn't be trusted. For Tess, it was her current default expression and Chloe'd used it repeatedly at The Torch to get me to agree to stupid schemes.

"I do and I am, but even if I weren't, Kal-El, I'm the only chance you've got."

I didn't say anything after that, just leaned on her and made slow, pathetic steps toward our goal. It took forever to get out of the valley with these caves and hours upon hours of Dara and I both dragging me until we came to a single, huge cave whose top rose high against the horizon like a spire. By the time she eased me through the doorway and to the wonderful, comforting sight of the portal, I was panting and dehydrated, only really half-awake.

She set me down gently by the pillar it was built into, and, as if it knew me, it started to glow and pulsate. It unnerved me to realize the blue glow of the crest had found a rhythm in sync with my heartbeat.

"Your turn," she said, eying me and the portal both hungrily.

"I...the last two times, this ended badly. Phantoms got out and you still aren't-"

"I held up my end. Don't kid yourself. If I want to, weak as you are? I'll knock you out and cut open your palm myself. We're here now and I'm leaving the Zone, with or without you."

"I..."

"Undo the shirt," she said, gesturing toward the sand encrusted bundle over my left hand.

I did and flinched at how much more swollen my hand was now. I couldn't even bend my fingers.

"You want to lose it? Get sepsis?"

"No," I said, hoping despite logic that opening the portal wouldn't be a mistake. I was sick and she wasn't wrong, if I stayed here, I'd be dead in a few days at best. I wasn't willing to do that. I could recatch phantoms later. Worry about Dara if she were a liar.

I couldn't do that if I were dead in a wasteland.

Standing up, I shuffled over to the portal and held out my hand for her, palm up. "Do it."

She took her blade and dug into my flesh, the second the first drops touched my family crest, the light flared white and we were gone, back to Earth, to my home, and I hoped I hadn't unleashed anything as bad as Bizarro or The Beast as I did it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three - Evasion**

I'd made deals before with LuthorCorp representatives.

Not as much with Lex, at least nothing I thought was shady. Lionel needed to be brought to justice, and I think all three of us-Clark included-realized that someone who murdered their own parents needed to pay for it. Again, _Oliver_, the legal way. You can't just go around blowing people up. I mean, you can, but that definitely makes you just as bad as Lionel and Lex.

The last time I'd made a true deal with a LuthorCorp scion, it was back after everything had happened with Clark and Lana in the loft. I was young and petty and stupid, and I folded bad to everything Lionel was offering me. I'm still ashamed of it, and that's a big reason I sit on so many stories. Don't get me wrong, I've died for Clark, even if it was only eighteen hours. I was willing to run away with a monster. Still, every time I was ever tempted to write about things like the Green Arrow and what I knew, I thought back to how much I hated myself after the Lionel deal and how I never want to be that greedy or underhanded again.

I've made a ton of mistakes in the five years since, but betraying my friends and allies wouldn't be one of them ever again.

Still, sitting there in Tess's office in The Daily Planet, I couldn't help the flashbacks to my biggest mistake, at least the biggest one I'd made until I harbored Davis. It felt so similar. She even had that smug look on her face that Lionel had worn, that gloat that screamed "I've won."

Clark would kill me when he got back, but he'd be back. That was what I had to keep focusing on.

"So," she said, sitting down at her desk and offering me a glass of water. I declined; who knew what she put in it. "Here we are."

"You could act less happy about all of this."

Tess shrugged and pulled the glass back towards her. "Look, it's like what I told Clark a couple weeks ago and even before that with the plane crash. It's not like I didn't know about Veritas. Lionel's journals allowed for that much as well as Lex's own records in his last year in Smallville. It's also not as if Clark's been discreet."

I frowned back at her. "Did you bug the basement?"

"No, but I can do the math. Big emergencies happen and he's conveniently gone until they're over. Jimmy Olsen had a theory going too, even if he couldn't prove it. I'm not stupid, Chloe."

"But you never bugged anything."

"After I found out about Lex using me as his eyes and ears without my permission, I'd hardly do that to someone else. I just wanted you or Clark to come to me."

"Because, what, you want him to be a savior or something?"

"Because, only a complete idiot like your cousin wouldn't put the pieces together and figure out what he can do. I didn't want to force the proof out of anyone. Trust only works if you offer the olive branch and wait."

"I don't know how much I can believe you."

She shrugged and drummed long nails on the desk top. "Clark hasn't reported to work for a month. I had to fire him two weeks ago, which we both know isn't like him. If he could be here, he would be."

"True."

"He hasn't been visiting his mom in D.C. There'd at least be a few small bits in the Post about that, a few pics of him at fundraisers especially with her immigration work."

"Maybe."

"You wouldn't be here if you had any other option, so spill, Chloe. I can't help you if I have no idea what I'm up against."

I sighed and paused for a minute, remembering clearly when Clark had told me everything in the arctic. I promised him then that I understood how loose lips sunk ships.

"I do have other appointments."

"Not like this. I...fine, I said almost as much on the phone. Clark's the Traveler Veritas was looking for. He was sent away from the planet he was born on, Krypton, because they had a war there and they ended up destroying himself. The Kents found him and reared him. Hell, they didn't even tell him about any of it until Lex hit him with his Porsche freshman year."

Tess leaned across her desk and focused her sharp attention on me. I figured that was as close as I'd get to her tells. Lex had trained her well before he'd been lost in the arctic and then ill.

"Thank you. That helps fill in the blanks. Lionel had some facts, but he didn't include the name or the fact it was completely gone. So Kara too?"

"That's a bit more complicated. Stasis and malfunctioning ships, but yeah, she's biologically his cousin. This is going to sound nuts."

"Nothing does anymore."

"But she's off looking for any possible remains of the planet or surviving colonies. She's not available because she's off-world."

Tess's eyes glittered at that. "So she can fly? Can Clark?"

"He wishes he could," I replied, shaking my head despite the seriousness of the situation. "He's crap at it. Kara tried to teach him, and she couldn't do anything about it."

"See then he needs help. Encouragement."

I bristled at that. Tess had a spotty record at best, and was at best stained grey if not a full out black hat. Encouragement was my department, even if I'd been distracted with my infection, memory loss, and then Davis's bullshit. I'd fallen down on my job this year, but I was trying to make up for it the only way I knew how.

"Mrs. Kent and I do the best we can. I guess Lionel and Lana did too before they left. I can explain the little details later."

"is that your way of diverting from the full disclosure. Hoping that I'll take the barest tidbits and let it lie?"

Actually, I hoped that to an extent. I wasn't so desperate that I'd gone crazy or naive. There was no way I'd ever explain about the caves or about the Fortress. Tess could never know it existed. Hell, with the way it collapsed on Lex and had tried to freeze me to death, Jor-El wasn't exactly fond of humans anyway. Even if Tess found it on her own some day, I doubted it would do anything more than try and kill her.

Small consolations.

"No, I just feel there are some things that are more relevant than others right now. This is the important part and why I was hoping you might have artifacts left over from Lex or geniuses on your payroll."

"Because?"

"Because Clark's biological father created this prison dimension called the Phantom Zone. Clark had a way to access it with a crystal he took with him," I was willing to hedge that much. "So he has the only way out, but I need to help him. I need to find a way in and he doesn't have any other crystals or artifacts left in his possessions that can open it again."

"Prison dimension?"

"I guess his father thought exile to a desert wasteland was better than the death penalty. Personally, I think that's debatable. I just have tried all my resources and research for a month, and I've gotten nothing."

"Well Clark's, obviously, extraordinary. He should figure his own way out. There's hardly anything out there as strong."

"Usually, sure, but the Zone takes his powers away. He's mortal there and the longer he stays, the better his chances run of bumping into prisoners with an axe to grind against his birth father and are more than happy to take it out on him."

"How would they know?"

"They always seem to. He had a run in with the Zone twice before, and it never goes well. Prisoners escape. It's why I'm worried he won't even try to leave. The aliens there are the worst things you can imagine from all over the universe. His screwed up sense of honor might just leave him there."

"That's a waste," she said, disdain clear in her voice.

I nodded. "Now you're seeing it my way."

Five months.

Four months of working with Tess and dodging her incessant questions. There were things I was never going to be dumb enough to explain, like the Fortress or his weaknesses. I don't know if Tess would believe me anyway about magic, but she surely had more than enough access to different types of Kryptonite. I had no doubt that Lex had at least the red and green in his possession, possibly black from earlier experiments.

No, she got what I gave her, and I hoped her own curiosity never put together the other holes in the story, about times when Clark seemed able to be injured.

Still, while I thought that four months of working with her technology and also of pouring through Lex and Lionel's records would help, I'd been wrong. We were no closer to narrowing in on any way to get into the Zone than I'd been the first day yelling at J'onn.

Why did Clark have to be so damn stubborn? All he had to do was get to the portal and open it. I knew that time moved differently there, but this was too long. If he had decided to be a full martyr like Kara, then he'd have a lot of explaining to do with me and Mrs. Kent, when he returned.

I wouldn't let my mind dwell beyond that.

I wouldn't let myself assume that the Beast had found him or some other prisoner and made short work of him. That wasn't possible. Clark was stronger and more resourceful than that, even without his powers.

He'd come back to me. It was what he did.

My cell rang while I was working on some of my case files. Tess was slaving away on the problem this afternoon. I'd swing by LuthorCorp today at five to stare at useless printouts. I wish that whatever bits of knowledge had been left to me by Brainiac that they'd help. It had the first time, but I had no idea how to open anything, especially without any crystals to do it.

I sighed when I read the caller I.D.

_Mrs. Kent_

Perfect.

"Hi, Mrs. Kent," I said, feeling like a jerk for having lied to her for four months. She didn't know I'd gone to Tess, and I didn't want her to know that either. "How are you?"

The voice at the other end of the line was hesitant and haggard. "Long days. I almost have enough votes for everything to pass, but it's been an uphill battle. Besides, I'm not sleeping well."

"I can imagine."

"Are you sleeping, Chloe? I know you've been trying to work with J'onn to figure something out, but I know you also tend to run on coffee and the occasional muffin if no one looks after you."  
_  
Translation: Clark looked after me as much as I looked after him_.

"I'm fine."

"And the last meal you had?"

"I think I had a nutrigrain bar for lunch?"

"You should visit me more. I know a certain speedster who'd be happy to get you out here."

"Bart?"

"Yeah, he visits weekly. I think he feels bad for me...and loves pie." There was a small bit of relief there, a bit of cheekiness that I never heard from her in other calls. Mrs. Kent had always been good at taking in orphans, hadn't she? "Come out this weekend. You can't work forever to solve this problem, not 24/7. Everyone has to crash some time."

"I can crash when he's home. You never know what evil will hit Metropolis next, and the Zone's the worst. I can't leave him."

"I know, but you can't help if you burn yourself out. You're only human now with Brainiac out of you."

"He's counting on me, and I let him down with all the Beast stuff."

"No, you didn't. You tried to protect him. Maybe you didn't do it the right way, but I've been there. Some days I think things would have gone better for him if we'd eased him into his heritage, told him before he had such a dramatic example. I don't know, but I do know what it's like to protect him so hard it backfires, believe me."

I laughed, and it was a shrill, bitter sound._ "_Backfire" was an understatement.

"Chloe?"

"I'm fine. I'll come out soon, I promise. I just need a bit more time."

"Alright but you know I'll check in tomorrow."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, but I have to go right now."

"Chloe-"

I clicked my phone off. Mrs. Kent's tone had changed lately. It was still sad, still labored, but it was resigned too as if Clark would come back or he wouldn't. If I listened to her too long, I might lose what resolve I had left. I wouldn't allow that so it was better to sometimes let my phone ring and pretend that I was busy with clients.

Sighing, I started organizing my files back into the heinous pink file cabinets that Lana'd picked out. Where anyone could even get that, I'd never know. My phone rang again, and I flinched. I didn't need a motherly lecture from Clark's mom, not now.

"Mrs. Kent, really, I'm fine."

"Chloe, I found something, and it's not what you think," Tess said, her tone terse. "Get to the penthouse and I'll show you what I have."

It was times like this I wish I had Clark and Bart's speed.

**

"Craters?" I asked, looking at the readouts.

Tess nodded. "I cross referenced. It's like the same indentations that happened around the world after Dark Thursday. You said that's when Clark was sucked in the first time."

"Yeah, and the craters each had a different phantom in them and the one in Smallville was Clark."

"We have five. There's one in the Outback, one in England near Cardiff, one in Tanzania, one in northern Canada and the final one's in Peru, outside of Lake Titicaca."

I closed my eyes and chased the fear and nausea away. Clark was back, and I was glad, but it meant we had Zoners again to hunt down. Considering the mess they'd made all over, especially Bizarro, that would be a dangerous set of criminals to catch. He'd beat himself up over it too, considering that was what Clark was best at.

By far.

"So is there a way to tell which one is Clark?"

Tess started pouring over her stacks of paper readouts. "The signals are all the same and only happened within the last hour. My satellites went nuts processing them. Your guess is as good as mine. Was anything different about where he landed post Dark Thursday?"

"Not that I know of, and-"

My phone rang and this time it belted out the chorus to "Here I Come to Save the Day."

Tess smirked at my choice of ring tone. "Mighty Mouse? So tongue-in-cheek, Chloe."

I narrowed my eyes at her as I clicked on my phone. "God, you're late!"

"I'm glad you can mock my punctuality," he said, and I tried to ignore how badly he was wheezing. His words were labored and hsi voice sounded almost thick and gurgly, like he was fighting off congestion. Stupid fucking Phantom Zone. it always messed with him. "Uh, Chloe, can you talk to Oliver. I might need a ride home."

"Powers out?"

"Yeah, I think my cold's not cooperating. So, how do you feel about coming to South America?"  
**


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four - Exposure

When I woke up after the portal spit me back out, I was expecting to see the farm land or possibly Metropolis. The first two times I'd gone and come back, I'd come home or about close enough. I always assumed the Phantom Zone would do that again a third time.

Sitting up, finding myself on a craggy beach wasn't what I expected to see. Groaning, I tried to push myself to my feet and then cursed when my left hand wouldn't support my weight. It burned to even touch it to the sand and, while it didn't feel the way Kryptonite did, it still hurt. Looking down, I forced myself to keep my breath steady. My hand looked terrible, still crusted in dried blood, swollen so much that my fingers looked more like bratwursts, and it smelled awful. Desperate, I forced myself up using only my right hand and started running.

I got about ten feet before I doubled over and coughed up clumps of greenish mucus from my lungs. It shouldn't be that surprising. When I Brainiac sent me there, I'd come back with the worst cold of my life-fun fact, only time I'd ever had problems with sneezing-and now my immunity must still be suffering. If my hand was still a terrible mess, then it shouldn't be surprising that my lungs were fucked up too.

I looked down and took stock of what I did have.

Basically that was boots, jeans-no shirt as that had been used to wrap my hand and must have stayed in the Zone-and, after digging through my pocket, about thirty dollars and twenty-five cents.

"Goddamn it!" I shouted, going through my four jeans pockets as if it wasn't already obvious my phone wasn't there.

I usually kept it in my jacket pocket. Since I'd left that in the Fortress after ambushing Davis with the Black Kryptonite, that meant I didn't have it either. Besides, I clearly wasn't anywhere near the Arctic if the clear waters and small boats off the horizon were any clue. That meant, as shitty as I felt, I'd have to walk to find a phone or computer or something to get in touch with Chloe.

Chloe was the person to call.

I was still incredibly pissed with her and confused. She'd hidden a serial killer, lied to my face, and then pulled Kryptonite on me. I think I could almost understand what she'd done, maybe. Despite logic and what Oliver had told me, I wanted to believe that Chloe really, truly wanted to spare me from being exiled to the Zone or from having to send a partially innocent person to it. If she'd only done that in hopes of having some fling on the road with Davis, well...

It made me want to puke.

Still, I couldn't call Oliver since he was someone I couldn't really trust after he'd killed Lex. I could call Mom, but I didn't want her to see me first. If she saw my hand, it would freak her out, and I just had to get some medicine or something. Chloe had a clinic, and she'd at least understand me not wanting to scare Mom. Of course, I was probably reaching pretty bad since human medicine didn't usually work on me. I figure that was a metabolism thing more than an alien DNA thing, but wasn't sure. I actually, know basically nothing about how I work. I mean, I know I'm kind of, sort of, photosynthetic. I still eat, sometimes, but I get most of my powers from yellow radiation.

How it does that?

Your guess is as good as mine.

So, still, there was a chance that my immunity and metabolism were readjusting to normal sunlight and being out of the Zone and Chloe could give me some human antibiotics and all would be well.

That sounded reasonable, right?

Shut up.

You tell your mom that your hand looks like a pitbull's chew toy and smells like a sewer and is turning not just yellow but clearly black.

That's what I thought.

Sighing, and feeling awkward to be half-dressed, I started down the beach. Eventually, the desolation of the quite shore gave way to a small village of maybe a couple dozen houses, made from baked bricks with metal corrugated roofs. The signs were all in Spanish, and I wanted to bang my head against a wall.

First, I might have taken French in high school.

Okay, not might have, did. Chloe wanted me to take Spanish because a good journalist would be prepared to speak to any subject and more people spoke Spanish now by far in the United States than French. Pete wanted me to take it because there was Friday taco day. Lana took French, though, so I'd signed up for it and spent the next four years struggling not to suck at it. I don't know. Call it an alien thing, but French never rolled off my tongue worth a damn, and it made everything actually so much more awkward in senior year when we had to do dialogues and work in class and all I could do was sit there and try not to think about her and my football coach having sex.

Okay, not having sex, maybe.

Still, I really wish I'd taken Spanish. I didn't read any, of course, and I barely spoke it. I tried to pick a few things up from Javier that time I'd been helping him with the Moleman Farmer problem. (Chloe's old mutation had a terrible side effect, but she kind of lucked out. At least she'd never been part bug, wolf, or mole.)

My life really did suck a lot. I spoke and read Kryptonian, which the AI had done to me way back at the caves. I think, though, it had done a few more things to me even in the few minutes of "training" it'd tried to start with me at the Arctic. There were a few other alien languages that I think I could manage, I'm sure Martian if J'onn had ever wanted to try, and, randomly, some Russian and Arabic.

But no Spanish.

Maybe the Kryptonian race didn't actually plan for all contingencies.

Pulling my hand to my chest and hoping it wasn't that noticeable (sure), I walked into the first place that at least seemed possible. It had a ton of advertisements on its side with neon lettering. I wasn't a genius with languages, but I knew what "telefono" probably meant. Stepping into the store was actually a bit hard. I had to duck my head and noticed wherever we were, I was significantly taller than everyone.

Great so I could stand out more than just being half-naked and bleeding.

"Uh, English?" I asked, frowning down at the man before me. He had a sky blue soccer jersey on and, again, was short, even shorter than Pete had been with very dark, almost adobe-colored skin. "I really need a phone?"

He stood up fast when he noticed my hand and started speaking in something rapid fire that wasn't like anything Javier had ever said.

I flailed and coughed a little before trying again, "Telefono? Um, problema? Andale, andale, arriba?"

That last one was from an old Speedy Gonzalez cartoon. So sue me.

The man gestured to my hand and pointed to the door and I noticed how red his face was growing. Whatever he said, I didn't really need the translation. It was clearly get the Hell out.

Coughing again and, God, was my chest starting to hurt, I held up my hand. I didn't want to freak people out, but I think he might not throw me out if he understood how really sick I was. Maybe. "Please, telefono, um, what's that word, um like ayuda right?"

He frowned and took a few steps back, keeping his eyes planted on my left hand. The little man the gazed around the cramped space, which, now that I noticed had a few telephones as well as about eight desktops that Chloe would have made fun of back in our first year at The Torch. No one was here but the two of us.

Sighing, he turned his head behind the curtain in back of him and said something terse and fast.

I sighed with relief when a guy maybe about Bart's age stepped out and looked me over. "English?"

"A little," he said. "Father only speaks Quecha. You need hospital?"

"No, no hospital. Um, telefono?" With my good hand, I pulled out the thirty dollars or so I did have. "It's American, sorry."

The kid's eyes glittered. "Perfecto, I show."

Huh, well at least something translated.

The family that owned the internet cafe was actually very nice. The dad wasn't happy with my infection, not that sepsis spread that way, but his son had taken me upstairs to the family's living room and let me sit. He'd served me tea and some soup made of peanuts which was a lot better than it sounds, and then I sat there, mostly dozing until a familiar, soft hand was on my forehead.

Somehow, I felt we'd been here before, like Chloe'd touched me like this when I'd been completely out of it with my fever sophomore year. I know she'd written me a letter-that had really pissed Jimmy off this year-but I didn't realize that she'd touched me too. Maybe I was imagining, wishful thinking for something that might not have even happened. Still, I sighed, and enjoyed the moment, pretending I was still asleep. When I woke up, we'd have to talk, and she'd have to explain what the Hell she was thinking and I was scared the answer was that she was in love with Davis.

"Clark?"

Knowing I couldn't delay it any longer, I opened my eyes and smiled back at her. "Hey, how are you?"

Chloe handed me clean jeans, a blue tee, and my favorite jacket along with various other things. "I figured you didn't want Phantom Zone gunk all over you anymore. Good call, you're giving a free show, Clark."

Her tone was light, breezy, but her eyes were shiny with unshed tears and she was staring at my hand the entire time, worrying her bottom lip.

She was as scared over it as I was.

"Thanks," I said, hissing when I sat up. She winced and that made me feel even worse. "I had a really crappy time."

She eyed my hand. "Do I want to know?"

"Apparently there are big, scary muppets that live there and then tried to eat me. It's bad enough just being psychopaths but even the scattered wild life had it in for me."

Chloe sighed and turned her back to me, and I appreciated the discretion. Once, when we'd been about thirteen and she'd barely moved to town, she'd walked in on me changing for the swimming hole. It had sucked, but that was a long time ago and things had changed since then. Anyway, considering how badly my entire left arm was hurting, I gave up on changing jeans. These would do until I went to talk to Jor-El. I struggled for a few minutes before I tapped her shoulder and held the blue t-shirt back out to her.

"If I hold my arms out as straight as I can, would you slip that on, and my jacket please?"

She smiled and it was that pitying look she got that I pretty much hated. It made her seem like my mom and not my friend, and I really didn't need that right now. "No problem, but you'll have to stay on the couch."

"You know, it's not my fault everyone is short."

She grinned, this time it was a genuine expression. "Everyone is just normal. I really like Peru, I feel normal. That said, you couldn't have picked Rio? It's like their March here, and I'm freezing!"

For the first time, I noticed the ski jacket and blushed. "Next time, I'll ask the Zone to send me to Hawaii."

"That's all I ask," she said as she helped me finish with clothes. "Great, now you won't look like a complete moron getting on the jet. Not that I don't think it gives some people a thrill."

"You don't have to do that," I said, my tone even more tired than I felt if that was possible.

"Do what?" she asked, also offering me a bottled water. Good call, I'd been taking my chances with drinking anyway from the Zone.

"Make jokes, be completely sarcastic, pretend that everything's fine and it's like any other save on any other week. Two days ago you were going to run off with Davis and I just...don't act like we're not going to talk about it."

She stilled and stopped looking me in the face. Great, now I'd made her feel like dirt. Of course, she'd been the one pulling Kryptonite out on me. "I know, but can we just get you a good bill of health from Jor-El and an estimation on when your cold is going to be over. You sound awful."

"I feel awful," I said, putting my right hand on her shoulder. "Chloe, I did miss you and I was worried. I appreciate you and Ollie came for me, and we'll figure everything else out. We always do."

"We haven't done a very good job of it, really, since Lex fired me and Brainiac infected me and Lana. If you don't...if we don't stay friends, I understand. I did what I thought would keep you safe, and I don't regret that."

"Or what would leave you with Davis," I muttered, wincing when she spun around glared at me. I was not invulnerable, actually weak and sick, and maybe it wasn't the best time to piss Chloe off.

"Davis is in jail, awaiting trial for the serial killings he voluntarily did to feed the Beast. I could care less. I haven't visited him in five months even though he still gets word to me that he wants me to see him. I don't care about Davis, I never did. It was all Brainiac in my head and then trying to keep him from hurting people."

"That's a likely story. I see the way you look at each other and, wait?" I yelped. "You mean five months? I was gone two days!"

"Zone time moves differently. It's been five months of Hell. I didn't make one bit of progress in finding you from my end, and of course you just pop out in the Andes," she finished.

I really looked at her then. In my own pain and exhaustion, I hadn't taken her at more than face value. Her suit was rumpled, her hair was greasy and pulled up randomly, and she had huge black circles under her eyes. Hell, judging by the way her clothes hung off her, I bet she hadn't eaten anything in months, not more than coffee and maybe some muffins. Chloe had this tendency to never eat if I didn't make her. More than that, she also wouldn't sleep or take her mind of stories or cases.

"You haven't visited him, have you?"

"No, I'm not a liar about everything," she said, tone quiet. "I did what I thought was right. I never said it was smart or that it worked, but you're not dead so maybe it wasn't the worst attempt."

"I wasn't going to die. Well, sometimes I do, but I always get better," I tried to play that off. She'd found me impaled or shot more than her fair share of times, and I also didn't like to think too hard on maybe what Cassandra and Jordan said was true and I couldn't. "Chloe, you're right, we'll talk about all that happened after. We aren't communicating the way we should and that isn't okay, but you're also right and I want to feel better and be okay and check in with mom before we start fighting."

"Yeah," she said, and she slipped her fingers through mine on my right hand. I frowned down at her and she shrugged. I took it as a gesture of comfort and nothing more. Maybe she wasn't in love with Davis, but I still feel she had been, and that things between them meant more than she wanted them to. "Let's just get to the caves and Jor-El from there."

"Yeah, you have my key still?" Maybe it was petty, but I could only be so mature about everything all at once.

"Yes, when Tess drops us off..."

I dropped her hand instantly. "Excuse me?"

"I wouldn't call Oliver. He hates me, and he's a murderer. Besides, Tess was helping me try and find you. She had all of her resources on it."

For the first time since my fever started, I felt cold. "Tess? Tess who was handpicked by Lex? Tess who runs LuthorCorp? That Tess? The one who's creepy obsessed with me, which seems to be a 'running LuthorCorp' requirement, that Tess?"

"Clark-"

"No. Is this some plan you have to create an alliance with everyone who's not me? I mean, Davis and now Tess? What is wrong with you?"

She hunched her shoulders and that shocked me. Chloe'd been up to yelling at me at first; Hell, most of the times we clashed, she did it very loudly like over me stealing her patient records. Maybe the five months had mellowed her.

I was hoping that was the option.

She'd already been so depressed around the time of her birthday, just nothing like the Chloe I knew. Of course, maybe I didn't know her so well anymore.

"J'onn didn't know how to help you. I didn't know. There was nothing in Swann's journals. The League disbanded."

"It what?"

"It did, that's what happens when you blow people up. Other guys? They don't want to follow you that much."

"I..."

"So Metropolis was defenseless, your mom and I were freaking out, and I know how dangerous the Zone is. Was I supposed to leave you?"

"Depends," I said. "How much does Tess know? Did I get back from one prison to end up in another?"

"Clark she's not going to experiment on you. I told her your were the Traveler, which she assumed from Lex's journals and Lionel's as well. I told her some things about Krypton and the Zone. I'm not crazy or desperate enough to tell her your weaknesses or most of the back story. I told her what I had to, but I kept it as little detail as possible."

"You told her. Chloe, I trusted you more than anyone to keep my secret and you sold me over to Tess."

She sighed again and started to the door. This really wasn't the place for any of this. "I was trying to save your life."

"You used to be better at it."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Loss

Here's this secret about Clark, and he'd never believe you if you tell him. I've never bothered, but it's still true. He thinks when he stands up tall, which he rarely does, and glowers down at you with his arms crossed over his chest that it's intimidating.

It's not.

To me, it's always made him look vaguely constipated.

Maybe to the criminals who run into the Blur and get a lecture it can be scary. I've known him since his tripping every time Lana was around phase, and I just struggle not to laugh. That said, even though he wasn't powered currently, I felt almost as if the back of my head was burning from his gaze, but that had more to do that, while his "I'm disappointed in you" look wasn't intimidating, it wasn't ever leveled at me.

Correction.

It hadn't been one he'd given me until everything had imploded so hard with Davis.

Now, I wondered if that would be his default expression when he dealt with me, both because of my mistakes over the Beast and now, possibly, with Tess. I knew Clark would always come to me. His mom lived in D.C. now, Kara was off looking for Kandor, and the League was disbanded and Lana was God knew where. He had no one else to bounce thoughts off of, to be his hacker in a pinch. That would never change because they worked great together, normally, and neither of us would spite Metropolis or the world over our personal bullshit. Still, the thought of him permanently looking at me with distrust and anger.

I couldn't bear it.

I'd find a way to make it right.

After all, I could tell myself a million times that everything was fine as long as we kept saving the world together and I had him in my life in some capacity. That wasn't true. I'd long ago accepted that Clark wasn't in love with me, and I was okay with that on most days. It didn't matter because this year with both Davis and Jimmy had proven to me that, no matter what, I was always going to be in love with him, to need to protect him, to be his friend if that's all I could get from him. I wouldn't let my mistakes relegate us to angry coworkers at best.

No freaking way.

Still, I wasn't sure what to say as we walked onto the tarmac by and waited at the steps of the LuthorCorp Jet. We couldn't speak honestly because both of us were mad but he didn't need that stress in his condition, not at least until we were back from the Fortress. Usually, Clark wasn't wrong, I went for snark to diffuse tension. He'd already shot that down. That left me eyeing his hand and grimacing.

It looked terrible. We were a psychological clinic, and I'd met and worked with patients who were suffering depression or breakdowns. Technically, we had medical facilities too in case someone was suffering a huge side effect to their abilities or had been injured or, as did happen, had accidentally hurt a family member and wanted discreet help. It wasn't the ER at Met Gen, though, and I hardly had an M.D. Still, I didn't think all the pus or the blackening of the skin around the bite was a good sign.

"It takes about nine hours to get back to Kansas," I said, wishing Tess would finish whatever it was she was doing up there and open the doors. It's not like Clark or I had luggage. "There wasn't anything really in the village, that I could tell, that sold first aid supplies."

"I didn't see anything either," he admitted, his tone tired but not as angry. That was a start. "It'll be okay. Maybe Tess has some bandages. The amount of times she gets a concussion...she should."

"Well, at least you have a Fortress that can replace memories, get rid of evil AIs, and probably heal you up in a hurry," I added, patting his right shoulder. "I can't wait to get all this past us, yeesh."

"Yeah," he said, trailing off a little and then glaring up at the open bay door.

Tess stood there in a blue silk blouse and black pencil skirt, her hair swept up in a bun, and commanding the runway with all the authority being in charge of LuthorCorp afforded her. She beamed at Clark, and I looked at my purse. Great, she was going to lord the whole mess over both of us.

Stupid desperation, stupid stubborn Clark, stupid Phantom Zone.

"Clark, a pleasure to be able to help you."

He clenched his jaw and walked up the stairs, brushing past her. I trotted after him, giving my own Sullivan evil eye at Tess. She could be more diplomatic about this. Tess smirked back at me and shut the door.

Clark sat by the window and looked back out of it. He was back to slouching, and I knew he was trying to avoid Tess's stares. I understood. He was like me, back when I'd had a power, and my kids. It sucked when people knew. I mean, for what it was worth, Jimmy had found my power cool and Clark hated that it had killed me, but he'd never made me feel crappy about it either. I'd never had the guts to tell Lois or my dad. It's just when people knew what you could do and what you weren't, they stared at you. With Tess, it was with that odd mix of almost-worship and scientific scrutiny. Clark's good hand gripped the arm tightly and I bet that it would have crunched under the onslaught if he were at one hundred percent.

"Uh," I said, trying to get any equilibrium at all. "Do you need help with your seat belt?"

"Oh I'd love to offer," Tess purred.

I bet she would. Tess hadn't made it much of a secret with Clark since the plane accident that her interest in his (at the time) assumed powers wasn't just because she thought he could be a savior. Clearly, she was nursing a massive crush.

First, she could join the club.

Second, I wondered, not for the first time, if Tess wasn't another one of Lex's many cloning experiments, just an aspect of himself made female. Hell, that or one of Lionel's many peccadilloes (see one Lucas Luthor).

Clark blushed and squirmed a bit in his seat. That was the class nerd part of him that, as much as he'd chased after Lana, loved Alicia, and flirted with my cousin-yeah, I'd noticed-wasn't actually all the comfortable around women. He was the only guy I legitimately knew who not only had more superpowers than I could count but who literally could quit the Planet tomorrow and be on a catwalk by Friday and he didn't even get it. Oh he had a swelled head about some things, could be a stubborn ass often, but he never realized how attractive he actually was or how powerful, not really.

I took pity on him and snapped it fast, keeping my eyes on my hands and the buckle only. "Great, got it. Tess," I said, keeping my tone measured. "Do you have some Bactine? Maybe some alcohol and some bandages, something, uh, chomped on him."

She nodded and after noticing his hand, her smile faded. After take off, Tess rushed off and returned with a complete first aid kit. "Clark, can you give me your hand."

He looked back at her and furrowed his brow. "I don't know. Are you actually going to clean it or maybe save some samples for later?"

Tess shook her head and pulled out the iodine and gauze. "I'm going to clean the wound. I don't want to go into how I know a lot about first aid, but I do, and you know I do. Just help me out. That doesn't...it's necrotic."

Clark winced but that word got to him. Holding out his left arm, he winced occasionally when she touched his skin with the ointment. "Thank you. I appreciate a ride home. I appreciate that you're actually really good at this," he said, as Tess finished cleaning and bandaged him in double time. "If I end up in Scion, I'm going to be a lot more pissed off than I am now."

"And I've hinted more than once before it even got this far that I don't have any interest in that. You couldn't help the world in cage, could you? That's never interested me. It might have very clearly been a fantasy of Lionel, if his journals are any indication-"

Clark stilled and pulled his arm back as best he could to his chest now that it was wrapped. For her part, Tess returned to her seat across the aisle, and I just left my hand over his right one, figuring his need to keep his panic down. The end of his relationship with Lionel had been terrible, mine too for that matter. I don't understand even now why Lionel had Pierce abduct Clark and almost kill him in a Kryptonite cage. Maybe that was his own desires finally bucking off Jor-El's programming or maybe it was just part of the Luthorian parenting of "hurting you to make you stronger."

I didn't really care.

He'd taken Clark, and, while it was wrong what Lex had done, both men were dead and the world was a better place for it.

Still, Tess hadn't lived it, and she didn't get how scared that had made him. For the two weeks after, even if he'd been busy with Kara or the farm, he'd been so withdrawn. I had barely been able to get him on the phone. I didn't even want to know what kind of nightmares that time probably still caused.

"That wasn't funny," I replied.

Tess nodded. "I'm sorry." Her tone said otherwise. "I just meant that I don't want to hurt you at all. I said I wanted to help, that I thought you could be amazing, and I meant it. I won't even say anything on the rest of the way to the States. You'll come to me in time."

Clark sighed and looked back out the window. "I doubt that."

"Hey, so do you think there are default settings for the Fortress?" I asked as I slipped the key into the altar in the caves.

Clark's right hand tense and I could tell he wanted his property back. Still, he was so tired, he was having hard enough time staying steady. In the blackness that had only been relegated ten hours ago to his knuckles had spread over most of his hand and was racing for his wrist. Of course, even the Kryptonian (maybe?) fauna could spread infection faster than a speeding bullet. Figured.

"How so?" he wheezed as the scenery melted around us and the crystalline spires of the Fortress reached up to replace cave walls.

Being just human, I stumbled, dizzied by the quick scenery change. Years of habit left Clark catching and steadying me with his right hand. Feelings flared up fast, and I shoved the memories that were threatening to well up from Dark Thursday back in their box. That time in our life was long past, much as I wished it weren't. Still, there was no safer place in the world than with Clark and in his arms.

That was undeniable.

"I mean," I said, stepping back and pulling my parka more tightly around myself (I was the only girl I knew who had hers unpacked at all times in case Arctic intervention was needed). "You can't set an ambient air temperature? Make it better for mere mortals?"

"It's a Fortress, not a house. It's not like it has a thermostat," he groaned, but he winked at me as he said it, the first bit of good humor I'd seen from him all day and it was encouraging.

"Sure and-"

Chloe Sull-I-Van, Kal-El, you are both back.

I loathed Jor-El. I'd met him twice before. He hadn't actually spoken when I'd come last time. The first time, he'd almost frozen me to death out of spite. The second, I'd been able to talk him into saving Kara's memories and, with that, Clark's life. I'd only been able to do it by being more honest with the AI than I had been with Clark, by telling it that I loved him. I did, and I rationalized it then by telling myself I hadn't had time to say "like a brother." I know now that's bullshit. I loved Clark, period.

God, Jor-El hadn't said anything had he?

Wait, no, probably not. I couldn't see him and Clark sitting down for gossip. If any part of the AI wasn't psychotic and evil-I wasn't convinced that was the case no matter what it had done for me-it still had screwed itself out of a real relationship with Clark the minute it had killed Mr. Kent.

Still, Jor-El was awful, and even if it helped occasionally, most of the prices it exacted were far too high. The fact that communicating with it happened with a mix of howling wind and its voice digging deep into my bones and brain just made it worse.

Clark coughed and then kept coughing. He doubled over and it took him a few minutes to recover his composure. "Jor-El, I'm back from the Phantom Zone."

"The portal serves its uses but if you've let any criminals out, my son, then you have to collect them."

I gulped, glad Clark didn't have his hearing then. "We'll look for any if they come."

Sull-I-Van, you are no longer welcome here. You pleased me twice by saving my son here, both with fine and with your declaration-

Confused, Clark eyed me, and I rushed forward, deciding to interrupt the AI was my best bet. "Jor-El, I'm sorry. I can explain."

Then I restore your health or at least try before the Legion completely fixed the situation.

I snorted. Glad the AI thought my memory loss and almost death was a situation. I loved Clark, I did, and I got along okay with Kara, but in general Kryptonians were stuck up assholes, and I wasn't sure the universe really missed them.

"I know-"

But you betrayed my son and allied yourself with Doomsday. Do not come back here, or I will freeze you as I once did my own son.

I looked down at the snow and nodded. "I understand but if Clark's ever sick and needs your help again and can't come for you himself, I will. Freeze me forever, I don't care, as long as I can help him."

You have an interesting definition, human, of what you think help really is.

"I messed up."

Understatement.

"Jor-El, please," Clark said, swaying a bit, and I reached up to steady him, not that if he fell I could do fuck all to stop two hundred plus pounds of crashing ex-quarterback. "I'm not feeling well."

Clark held up his left arm, which he'd unbandaged for easy access before leaving the Kawatche Caves to give Jor-El the best access to understand what was happening. "Something bit me in the Zone. It's obviously infected."

Sull-I-Van, step back, please.

"It's not a trick, is it?"

No, I want Kal-El healthy overall. He cannot complete his destiny to rule without a healthy body.

"Yes, exactly what I long for," he deadpanned before coughing again.

Stepping back, I winced at the beam of light that shot from the Fortress's roof and that same glowing column enveloped Clark that I'd first seen when I'd stumbled into this mess. The scan or whatever it was only lasted a few minutes, but I was relieved all the same when it was over. I was scared always with Jor-El that whatever he did might last years, as with his attempt to freeze Clark last year.

My son, you have a cold. This is a flu that was common on Krypton. In a couple weeks, it will run its course. The fever will spike and the accompanying hallucinations will be problematic, but in two Earth weeks, you'll be healthy and your powers restored.

"Oh, okay, that's not so bad. I mean the Beast is gone and Metropolis made do for five months. I'm sure it'll be okay for two more weeks. I don't supposed human medicines will help, even if my powers are out?"

No, but I have been told human chicken soup soothes the soul.

I frowned. Was the AI trying to be funny? And since when did it know about human anything.

Clark coughed and leaned against the table in the Fortress's center. "Jor-El visited Earth in the fifties, but I can deal with fever and hallucinations. Uh, I've had both before."

"And his hand?" I said, gesturing to something I desperately hoped Jor-El could fix. It was so black now from the wrist down that even if he could be treated with human medicine, there wasn't anything a hospital could have done for him short of amputation to stop the infection's spread. "What bit him?"

A Var'nal, actually a native species of Krypton. They're notoriously poisonous to us, the toxins they carry kill flesh and continue to spread quickly. The fact you're alive at all after two days is actually quite miraculous.

The AI was oddly thrilled by this. I wasn't sure why.

"You can fix it, though?" Clark asked, and he was quieter; I wondered how tired he was getting, how much the fever and sepsis were overtaking him. "I mean you can set back time that one time and raise the dead and all sorts of stuff. You just zap this better, right?"

The Fortress paused and the wind howled more loudly around us.

I didn't like that. It wasn't like Jor-El to hesitate; it talked almost exclusively in insufferable proclamations and orders.

"Jor-El?" Clark asked, and the wheezing was becoming so much worse. He was at the limits of what he could do without more rest. The AI stayed silent and Clark sighed and slumped his shoulders. "Father," he looked away from me then I knew what it cost him to try sucking up to the AI. "You have to help me."

"Please, Jor-El," I added, and I'd tell him everything I loved about Clark since eighth grade in embarrassing detail if he'd just do anything to fix this.

Kal-El, Sull-I-Van, even with the yellow sun, even if you were healthy, the poison of the Var-nal is fatal and unstoppable. The one blessing is it is contained so far to your hand only. Amputation is the only option.

"What?" Clark asked. "You can't!"

I cannot help you. There is no medicine for it or treatment even here. Either you allow me to amputate or you die.

"Jor-El, please, you have to think of something-"

The wind howled violently and my teeth chattered.

Sull-I-Van, you have no place here. You sacrificed that when you brought Zod's creation here. I am telling you the truth. I do not want to do it. It would maim my son and, to be honest, a maimed heir cannot fulfill his proper destiny.

Clark blinked. "What?"

I will save your life and I will release you from your destiny. You can rule nothing properly while handicapped. It is a dishonor to the House. You need never come back should you prefer not to.

"I never wanted to 'rule' anything," he spat. "Is this a trick?"

The AI "spoke" again and almost sounded mournful. It is not. I had such great hopes for you, pity.

There was a flash of light, something that burned hot and red, that forced me to slam my eyes shut. When I opened them again, we were back in the caves, and Clark, weaving unsteadily on his feet was holding the stump of his left arm to his chest.

I forced back my own urge to cry, and tried not to pity him. I was terrible at hiding my real thoughts from him on some things, but he needed me to be strong and keep him moving, at least till we got him rest and regrouped.

Sidling up next to him, I let him put his right arm around me as I started heading for my car. He was heavy and it took a long time to make it up the path, time that seemed to drag on worse when the only noise to distract us was his labored, gurgling breaths. I didn't say anything even as I opened the door for him.

It shocked me he was still coherent enough to speak. At first, he was so quiet, that I missed it.

"What?"

"You were right, Chlo. I...Oliver's an asshole and I was stubborn and maybe it wasn't a smart plan, but, you were right. I, let's go to the farm."

I nodded and fought back tears as I rushed to my side of the car. I took a few steadying breaths out of his field of view and eased myself into the drivers' seat.

"No, you're wrong."

"About you? Probably not?" he said, trying and failing to actually smile.

"No, about the farm. We're going there, but, be honest, we're really going home."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six - Nightmares and Dreamscapes

I didn't say anything on the drive home. Chloe surprised me a bit by not saying much either. She just turned the radio to some alternative station and kept her concentration on the road. That was unusual for her. This was a woman who could say two hundred words just ordering a black coffee at The Talon.

Maybe I'd been too hard on her when she'd found me in Peru.

Besides, I could complain all I wanted about Tess knowing, and I still wasn't sold it was a safe idea, even if she hadn't shoved me in a cage right away, but if Chloe hadn't been able to get to me so fast, I might have lost a lot more than just my hand.

My hand.

I couldn't look at it, just had taken off my jacket to cover where it had been. It didn't hurt, but I wasn't sure that would stay that way. I mean, humans had problems with pain in things that had been cut off right? I think I'd seen that once on TV, something on like the Discovery Channel? I wasn't sure. Honestly, since I don't get permanently sick and injured, okay, hadn't before, I didn't pay much attention to things that happened to other people. I've heard of certain things, like dysentery or chicken pox or pneumonia, but I'd never had them or lived through them. It just was this foreign concept of "That must suck" the way I figured most people in Kansas felt about like the Bubonic Plague.

I wished I'd paid a little more attention.

But, no, it was covered now. Not painful and not black anymore as Jor-El had been able to take it just above the wrist, but I couldn't look at it either. I noticed that despite her focus on the highway, Chloe occasionally glanced my way and down at my jacket bunched on my lap. I don't think she thought I noticed since I was looking out my window, but she wasn't as subtle about it as she believed she was either.

It was a lot to take in, and that was an understatement. I mean, it already hurt to breathe and I wasn't thrilled at all that I'd be powerless, feverish and generally out of it for two weeks. The world and city would manage, like I said, but it didn't mean it didn't hurt to breathe and I didn't feel like everything was burning hot. It was great Jor-El said that would pass, but could he have possibly had some Kryptonian medicine or fixer upper for my problem? That would have been nice. For some all powerful computer/archive, it rarely helped me out.

Funny how it could pull out mind wipes and possess people when it needed to threaten me, but the best it had come up with this time was amputation and a "wait and see."

I'd almost believe this was some other lesson it was trying to teach me, some other "You didn't listen so suffer" bullshit things it assumed was parenting. Maybe it had been on Krypton. I thought of Dara, and I hoped wherever she was she wasn't violent, hadn't lied to me, and was just trying to adjust to Earth. I'd have to find her, but I couldn't right now, not until I had my powers back. I couldn't see myself doing more than passing out for a long time, actually, after how terrible the last few days (my time) had been. Still, she had a point. If Jor-El had been sending just thieves to the Zone, which really did feel like Hell and a twenty percent chance at best of not being killed by monsters or psychopaths, then maybe the real version had been an uncompromising asshole too.

Or maybe Krypton was nuts. Kara's father, clone or not, had hurt me and turned on her. My birth father sent the ship with me and it branded me on command. Maybe the whole planet came from the Lionel Luthor school of parenting. That made me feel worse.

However, the AI had always been desperate for me to start training, and I almost would have gone two years ago before Kara showed up. Not now. I thought that what I was doing as the Blur and with Justice when it existed was the best I could do for the world. I wasn't convinced that if I came here, the AI wouldn't make me Kal-El again, wouldn't take away all my free choice. Jor-El or the Fortress, whatever the difference was, had always been adamant that I'd come to it some day. If there was anything it could have done to save my hand, I think it would have done it. It seemed...if a machine can seem anything...like it was disappointed I was maimed.

I had no interest in being some alien dictator, no thanks, but it felt weird too for whatever destiny I had to be back completely in my own hands, ugh, hand and to not have to worry about what the AI was planning in the shadows. Don't get me wrong, I'd hated everything about this since I was fifteen and my ship was telling me to "rule them with strength," but it was also odd being sort of like a free agent.

Like if I screwed up my life more than the usual it was all on me and not on the AI or alien duties.

I wasn't sure if I liked having any reason to fail, any scapegoat taken away. It made life scarier than even the loss of a hand did.

"Hey," Chloe said, patting my shoulder. "We're here. Do you need help getting up the stairs? I don't think I can because you're huge, but I was hoping you're not so feverish you're dizzy. I mean, you can always take the sofa?"

I snapped out of everything and shook my head.

Turning back to her, I tried to give her my biggest smile. She was worrying her bottom lip and her eyes were huge, frightened. I was trying to keep her from being so upset, but I didn't think I was going to have any luck with that.

"Chlo, I can manage."

"Can you shower? I mean, your clothes were mostly clean but you are pretty messed up from the Zone and Tess cleaned the wound before but you might need to wash off after two days in a desert and a day wandering around Peru. Is that...are you too tired for that too?"

My shoulders sagged a bit. I'm not being immodest when I say this. I'm probably the strongest being on the planet. It's a scary, overwhelming thing, but I'm pretty sure even when J'onn has his powers that I could overpower him. I know I'm stronger than Kara, and both of them are either weakened or not here. Most of the time, it scares the shit out of me. Because the only things keeping me from just doing whatever I wanted, really, are how mom and dad raised me and, often, Chloe calling me on my crap. I try and be a good guy, but I know, deep down, it would be easy to have whatever I wanted.

Still, even if being so powerful mostly made me scared that I'd abuse it some day, it also made me pretty confident and self reliant. I was the guy who saved other people, not the one who was having so much trouble breathing that he might just pass out in a shower.

Not that I thought I would, just that I was tired and everything burned.

"I think I can."

She smirked. "Good because I could totally offer to help."

I rolled my eyes but actually smiled genuinely. "So you've decided to channel your inner Lois to make me feel better?"

As much as Chloe and I had relied on each other in the past, I knew there were things she'd distinctly never offer in all seriousness. I was pretty sure this was one of those things, just too awkward.

"Well if she were here, well, she doesn't get you're the Blur and stuff, but she'd be all 'Get with it, Smallville' and slug you on the shoulder."

"I don't think I'm looking for the Lois method of compassion. She has too much of the General in her attitude I bet. Just 'stop your whining' type."

"I think you're allowed to be frustrated, Clark. I just thought if I could make you laugh, I dunno, you'd feel better even if it's stupid." She said, gesturing to where my stump was still hidden by my jacket. "I know it can't." She reached out then and squeezed the hand I had left. "I'll take care of you. Just so you know, whatever you need."

I nodded and squeezed her hand back. Tess scared me, and the stuff with Davis left me confused and very jealous, no matter what she called it, but I didn't have the energy or the desire to be mad at Chloe. I'd spent three days, most of them in Hell, trying to get back to her. Yeah, we'd also had a shitty year, but I'd come close to losing her twice, first with Brainiac eating through her mind, and then the Legion wanting to murder her for "the greater good." Some good that would be. My world without Chloe Sullivan would be unbearable.

We just had to relearn how to work better together.

I'd hidden things from her, and I bet that if Jor-El had fully restored her memories that Brainiac might not have taken her over completely, and she'd sheltered Davis. Considering me and the Beast going to the Phantom Zone had maimed me, I wasn't sure what a full out fight, something that could have been possible before, would have left me. I can understand why she'd been so scared.

I always thought of myself as invulnerable, and mostly I am. The stump where my left hand should have been said otherwise.

"Then I need to apologize," I said. "I haven't been grateful enough. Tess can be scary, but if Oliver wasn't speaking to you-"

"No one. Bart says he won't even return his or Victor's calls."

"Wow," I replied, and that worried me a bit too. Oliver had already murdered someone, and it worried me how far he could fall. One problem at a time, though. I needed my health intact first before worrying about anything else. "Exactly, but you came and this sucks," I said, holding up my left arm. "It does, but I'd have been dead if I'd waited any longer. I owe you that. I can't understand what was going on with Davis-"

"I know," she said, her tone hollow.

"But," I said, stroking her cheek and, yeah, it occurred to me I'd never have done this with like Pete or Bart, "I trust you. I think you meant well and you weren't wrong. This whole thing cost me a lot, and it might have killed me without your help. I guess we'll never know."

"And I'm glad the Beast is gone. You have no idea how much. I mean it, whatever I can do, Clark, for the next two weeks, you have me."

"What about after?" I asked, easing myself out of the passenger side. It always felt like having to unfold me. Chloe favored smaller cars which, okay, good for gas mileage, also were not made for tall guys. Today was one of those days I could get cramps or that pins and needles thing. I wasn't amused. "Will you dump me back on my mom?"

She hopped out and I wrapped my right arm around her shoulder. Maybe I needed a little support. It definitely made getting up the stairs easier. "Of course not. I just...you know what I mean. I figure you'll be pretty out of it soon if what Jor-El said about the fever dreams tracks. I'll do whatever you need, okay. I'm so pathetic. I get that, but every hero needs a sidekick, right?"

I grinned and, okay I definitely wouldn't do this with like Bart, kissed the top of her head. "Partner, that's the right word. Completely a partner."

The showering part hadn't been hard. I was tired and hot and a bit light-headed, but I wasn't about to topple over either. Besides, Chloe wasn't wrong, after the crap I'd gone through in the Phantom Zone, being actually clean felt nice. No, the problem came afterwards.

She'd been nice enough to leave pajama pants and a t-shirt outside the door, and I'd scooped them up with my good hand. Then I'd realized that the shirt was complicated but something Chloe could help me with. Pants, however, for both our sakes and to prevent embarrassment, that I had to figure out on my own.

It took a lot of maneuvering, not going to paint a picture, and I almost fell like six times, but I managed.

I walked into my room, expecting to see Chloe, but frowned. That room was empty. I perked up my hearing and grimaced when I realized it was out. Sorry, it's all so reflexive. It's something I expect to be able to do so not having it for three days was like if you just suddenly went deaf. Still, I could hear as well as an average person (which, not that great) and noticed there were foot steps coming from mom's room.

Confused, I walked in there, t-shirt in my remaining hand, and quirked my head at the scene.

Chloe'd changed the sheets for me and also brought up some toast and juice and milk. When I stepped in she swallowed hard. Interesting.

"Oh, so, some of it worked out?"

"Yeah, not the best, not gonna lie, going to have to figure that out, but I mostly got it. Uh, the shirt's harder?"

She rolled her eyes and pointed to the bed. "Martha's is bigger and you'll thank me later for having the space when the dreams hit. Anyway, sit down, Sasquatch. There's no way I can reach up like six feet to help you that way."

I grinned and sat down. "It's not my fault you're short."

"Maybe your planet was weird. Maybe everyone was freakishly tall and too good looking. Some sinister alien invasion technique." Her tone was light as she helped shove the shirt over my head. It was a bit rough and I figured she was trying to get through the awkward as fast as possible.

"So you think I'm attractive?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "I think Kara is a beauty pageant winner and even your evil robots had nice cheekbones. You manage."

"Ouch, hit me where I live, Chlo."

"Yeah, you're real egotistical," she snarked and we fell back into an easier rhythm than we'd had in while. "Get some food. You'll feel some better and I wish medicine worked on you. You're so hot, I keep going 'Tylenol, get the fever down.' Maybe ice packs? I'll need to make a list of something to improvise around traveler considerations."

I nodded and laid down, humoring Chloe by drinking some juice, but I wasn't all that hungry. I guess that happens when you're feverish as Hell and wheezing was the only way you could breathe.

She frowned back at me. "No food, food? Toast isn't that taxing!"

"You're not my mom."

"No, but I'll answer to her eventually. Maybe I'll get some chicken soup for tomorrow."

"You're such a mom, Chloe. When did that happen?"

"Well I counsel and you're a twenty-four seven job, Clark," she said, taking the juice back from me. She stood up and then turned off my lamp. "Get sleep, it'll get better."

I was in The Talon. That was weird. I'd been asleep in my room, that I knew. Now I was outside of Chloe's apartment, standing on that spiral staircase. Reaching up, I tried to knock on the door with my left hand and winced when I realized it wasn't there. Embarrassed, I pulled my arm back and shoved my jacket over it so that it wouldn't as noticeable. Then I knocked with my right.

Chloe didn't answer by the door slid open anyway.

Not locked.

Confused about how I'd gotten here, I stepped through the door and wished I hadn't. Chloe was in bed.

With Davis.

I stood there, frozen like an idiot deer or something, and all I could see was her on top of him, moaning, and things from Chloe I thought I'd never see and then she turned to me, finally realizing I was in the room and just smiled at me, something feral and unlike any look Chloe had ever had.

She nudged Davis and both laughed back at me, smirking back at where my hand should have been.

And there I stood, unable to focus on anything but calling her name.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven - We All Fall Down

It would have felt beyond weird curling up in Clark's regular bed. First, I knew for a fact he'd shared that with Lana about a year ago, which, to him, still felt like four or five months if not sooner. Second, it wasn't a place I'd ever crashed before. Unfortunately, as charming as the Kent farm house was, it was small and only had two bedrooms. That left me taking the couch, the same way Clark had when Lois first lived on the farm.

Clark was a nicer person than I was. The couch was not that comfortable and that's saying it nicely. It was probably older than we were and I think a spring dug into my back all night. Of course, Clark's invulnerable...no, not invulnerable...God, his hand. Sorry, I mean Clark doesn't feel sore. I was mortal again and I didn't have that luxury. Also, I don't care how little cramps he got or how unlikely he was to get pins and needles or whatever, this couch was not that freaking long. Maybe Lois owed the Kents a fruit basket. They'd been super nice to house her for like six months.

Of course, my cousin had a way of growing on people so who even knows.

To be fair, it wasn't like I was going to get much sleep. Things were better in two ways. First, I had him home. I hadn't slept in months because I was terrified he'd been killed in the Zone. Yes, he was hurt and yes, he was going to have to deal with this flu for a couple weeks. The amputation was far more worrying that a temporary cold, although I wasn't looking forward to a delusional Clark. We'd played that came before with disastrous results and hospital visits for Lana and Lex. I really hoped we'd be able to keep him calmer as the hallucinatory fever worked its way through his system. Second, he was being nice to me. He was still clearly scared about Tess, had said as much, but he was trying and I was so relieved when he apologized tonight that I'd almost burst out in tears.

I was so full of shit when it came to him, and he was either so dense or just played that way to avoid things. I could tell myself a million times over that we could just Scooby together, that I'd be his hacker and tech girl no matter what, and it wouldn't matter if he were mad at me. At the end of the day, I knew that was beyond crap. So having him thank me for trying, for saving what parts of him I could. It was the absolution I'd needed so badly, maybe even since my haziest memories of Sebastian Kane and what Brainiac had enabled me to do, whether I was even sure I'd wanted that or not.

Still, what the Hell was I gonna do? Jor-El hadn't officially cut Clark off. I mean, the key still seemed to react to the portal, but he'd released Clark from his destiny. Frankly, that relieved me. Jor-El's lists of crimes started with, as Clark tells it, branding him like cattle and working all the way up to murdering Clark's actual father. Without the psychotic AI in our lives, throwing out edicts and "teaching" Clark, things would run more smoothly. Yes, a couple times it had helped, as with the dagger for Martha or restoring Kara, even trying to stop Brainiac eating through my mind. But it was unpredictable as Hell. It was a dangerous, erratic machine and the wrath it spread out wasn't worth the Deux ex Machina-literally-most of the time.

But Clark was hurt. Again, fevers faded. God did we know that very, very well. He was still going to stay gifted, so to speak, but we had an adjustment period from Hell to go through. I'd have to create a paper trail for a "farm accident" for him, at least he had a perfect cover there. I'd have to explain it to Martha. She'd want to come home for this. It was far from an election year for her, and she would want to come home for this. There were things I couldn't help with, things she'd done for Clark last when he'd probably been too little to understand Earth customs. I mean, yeah, I loved Clark but neither of us were comfortable with me helping him if he needed it with showers or dressing. There was friendship and then things that were so embarrassing that even with our relationship, we wouldn't be able to look each other in the face.

My palms grew sweaty and my throat clenched.

I'd promised.

Years ago, when the Angel of Vengeance first appeared, Martha had come to me and thanked me for being in on the secret, for helping her weather such a burden after her husband's death.

Several weeks after her move to D.C. and my first resurrection, she'd flown me out, herself, to the capital and without Clark's knowledge. There she'd expressed her worries about leaving Clark alone, not that he was three still, but he tended to get himself way over his head. Considering since she'd left for D.C., Clark had been frozen by Jor-El, almost wiped from existence by Brainiac and time travel, rendered powerless and almost a slave by Lex, and faced off against a Beast from Zod's worst imaginings...well, I can see how she had a point. We'd mapped out a plan and she'd left me entrusted with the person most precious in the world to her, and I'd promised with my love and adoration obviously no secret to her, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, that I'd protect him with my life.

Now I had to tell her that he was alive but not whole and recovery might be a long, hard process.

No.

Scratch that.

It would be.

Clark made for the worst patient I'd ever met. He'd been impossible to keep on bed rest during his sneezing fit, and, God, had he bitched and moaned his first week mortal after I found out his secret. Someone had never explained the need for constant hydration while doing chores in June, nor what sunscreen was for. He'd been peeling all week but almost passed out from heat stroke his second day helping rebuild his home. I was not looking forward to the "I can do it" stubborness that was clearly learned from his dad, great at Mr. Kent had been.

Hmmm, maybe that could be Martha's problem.

I just had to keep him well-rested till the fever ended and work with Tess where I could to track the other four meteor impacts, find out where the escaped Zoners were and try and contain them with her tech or her access to other meteor mutants. Not all were 33.1 captives. I understood that. Tess wasn't Lex. Lex stole. Tess had mostly recruited because some, like Bette, could be wooed with promises of money and luxury. I couldn't quite understand that, but if we could take care of this, that would be great. At his best, the Zoners before had almost killed him. Without J'onn, that spine cruncher in Seattle would have. Bizarro was beyond difficult, and that vine lady had essentially crucified him.

I just...

..too much and I wish the League were back and real. I knew in Central City that Bart and Victor were doing what the could but everyone else was off the map, and I'd still rather work with Tess than ever deal with Oliver. He murdered and accused me of being no better.

Everything in my body told me he was beyond dangerous, that there was a loose canon who knew Clark and me too well and might be a liability.

One thing at a time.

Curling back on my side, I worked toward trying to relax. Counting sheep had failed so far, but just concentrating on the relief that Clark was home and that we could manage everything else, that helped. I was almost asleep, feeling that sensation of falling down deep, when Clark screamed.

I ran so fast that you'd have thought I'd had super speed.

When I got there, he was tossing and turning in the bed, screaming my name. It wasn't sexual, the distress was evident on his face and the way he screamed. God, what the Hell was was he dreaming? Reaching over, I tapped his shoulders. When he stayed out of it, I upped my tactic to shaking him awake.

"Clark! Clark! It's okay, I'm here."

He finally blinked awake and surprised both of us, I think, by sweeping me up in a hug. I relaxed into that embrace. I can't remember the last time he'd held me like this. After my exorcism maybe? I had held him after Lana left but it was me comforting him, and not the other way around. It felt so safe here, even if it felt different, off because of where one hand should have been, gripping the small of my back.

I pulled back, my heart hammering, and I was glad he couldn't hear it currently.

Reaching up, I touched his forehead. "You're really hot. I'm getting so many ice packs when I go to the city tomorrow and cleaning out your freezer. We'll have to break the fever the old-fashioned way."

Clark looked at me, his eyes glazed over. "I...Chloe, I had the worst nightmare."

"I guess it was a 'and you were there and you were there' moment?"

He nodded and reached out to stroke my hair back. I know damn well that's not something he does with Lois, let alone a guy friend. I never read much into it, no matter how much I loved him. I was permanently stuck as "just Chloe" and, most days, I could bear that. It only pained me the way he flinched he'd reached out first with his left arm and had to compensate quickly. I smiled as brightly as I could for him. No need to set off a mope.

"Yeah, and I was so scared I'd lost you."

"Right here, Clark, and I'm not going to run anywhere, promise."

"I...alright, but you'll stay? In case I have another nightmare."

I frowned. "There's no chair here."

He ducked his head, long bangs falling into his eyes. Huh, interesting.

"You said it was a large enough bed. Mom and dad shared it and he was as tall as I am."

Not nearly as broad, but I didn't think that would win my argument. I was so confused. I know he wanted me to stay the same way that he'd have asked Martha to stay with him after a nightmare. This was not the consideration Lana got, not even that look between Lois and him that I mostly remembered from my wedding or even that look from him when I wore her face. It was brotherly from his end and it cut fresh, as always, but I nodded and still wearing just sweats, nothing weird, slid into bed beside him. I turned my back to him, even stuck a pillow between us, to give him what space I could.

It wasn't much.

Clark really is a huge guy.

It was how I slipped off to sleep, and if someone reached out to stroke my hair a bit, well, it didn't mean anything, did it.

"Rise and shine, Superboy," I chimed, shoving the tray in front of him.

Clark eyed the burned waffles and oatmeal skeptically, one eyebrow arched eye. "Chlo?"

"I am not as bad as I was two years ago. Uh, Jimmy liked to sign up for cooking classes." He tended to cancel on about half of them, but I learned to cook basic stuff, not burn everything or mix in salt on accident for sugar. Hell, I made some mean chocolate chip cookies too. "Anyway, the tradition has to be burned. That's what dad gave me when mom left and when he announced we were moving to a town famous for a crap factory."

Clark laughed. "I don't know if I'll like them."

"Hence the large bowl of oatmeal. It might be easier for your throat and to eat anyway with a stuffy nose."

"Stuffy everything, " he replied, coughing and he sounded like a total mess.

I nodded and set everything down on the night stand to his right. Before he could say anything, I rushed down the hall and returned with his rolling desk chair. I sat down then, across from him, and picked up my coffee and a burned waffle in the other hand to start. Clark was frowning back at me, lips pursed, and I had the oddest feeling he was pouting, as if he were angry that I hadn't cuddled back into bed with him, but that was sort of nuts.

He'd gotten through the night, no need to embarrass us both, right?

Clark shrugged and picked up a waffle with his good (only) hand. "When in Rome, right?" He chomped through half of if before grimacing. Narrowing my eyes at him, I shook my head. "Are you serious, Chlo?"

"Swallow at least one. It's good luck, like a fortune cookie."

He shrugged and finished it with all the enthusiasm he reserved for peas. "Yuck, your taste buds are definitely weirder than mine and I'm from Krypton."

"Sure, play the alien card. You just don't get burned waffles."

He laughed and moved onto some apple juice. "You have that right."

We bantered back and forth like that for a few minutes, falling into that pattern and ease we'd had since we were kids. It was nice. Sighing, I picked at my second waffles until I broached the question bugging me since early this morning.

"Do you know what about me you dreamed?"

He shook his head a bit too emphatically. "Just this sense I lost you. It's so hard to explain."

"Alright, and I'll never be going anywhere. This is like with the splinter from Fine. You have to remember that the things you dream or see, they're not true."

I reached out and squeezed his hand. "This is real. I'm here and I'm calling Martha. Your mom will be here tomorrow or in two days, latest."

"Mom's going to freak out!" he said, holding up his left arm.

"So you were what? Not going to tell her and then where super baggy sleeves for Thanksgiving? Clark, have some logic."

"I just never wanted to hurt her."

"Your mom's awesome," I said, even if I felt the exact same way. "She's been tough about all your issues since before we met. I'll brace her. Besides, let's be honest, it's hard for you to get dressed and other stuff so you need a mom for that. Unless you really want me to help."

"No!" he shouted, then blushed. "I...uh, you're not like a sister, Chlo."

I frowned and quirked my head at him. Curious but too hopeful about his meaning. "Exactly, I'll buffer with Martha. I've got to go to ISIS. I apologize. There are some case files I'll need to bring home for the week, and ice packs and a vaporizer, oooh extra salt."

"What's a vaporizer?" he asked, falling into another coughing fit.

Pressing my hands to his shoulders, I applied pressure until he gave up and lay back down. Cool. He humored me a lot even now. I mean he had over a foot on me and like a hundred pounds. Still, it was nice he was at least listening to me and my rest advice so far. "You, my friend, have so much to learn about being sick. I got this. I have to go to Metropolis be back in maybe five or six hours. I'll do my best but my car doesn't come with superspeed, not if I want to avoid points on my license."

Clark nodded. "Thanks, and you said five hours?"

"Yeah or six, why?"

"That sounds perfect."

"Yeah, Lo, it's nice that he's back from D.C. Do you want me to send Clark to Star City so that he can adjust your cable?" I asked, my cousin on my cell. It was nice to have something good to share with her. I missed her, but she was doing well at The Register without an editor vindictively killing her articles, and she loved Oliver, the part of him he let her see. "I mean, what's life without a free repairman?"

She laughed. "Cuz, we have satellite. Hell, Ollie has his own theater and advanced access to movies. It's pretty awesome. Miss you though. You work too hard at ISIS. You have to see me soon. Screw Thanksgiving. Come at Halloween. Bring Smallville, I'm even going to be generous."

"I dunno, Lo," I hedged. Ollie was the last person I wanted to see.

"Look, you, me, a ton of slasher movies and then I'll be your wing woman in a pub crawl. I'll be a frisky kitty and we'll dress you up as one of those beer wenches. You're blonde. It'll so work. You need to work harder on forgetting that tool Jimmy plan."

"Jimmy isn't the worst-" I said, but I didn't understand why. Jimmy had made his opinions of me well known with Facebook messages and theft. All I was trying to do was keep Davis from killing people. Of course, Jimmy had been insufferably needy and maybe I'd just wanted to be normal too badly, and been too out of it with Brainiac pulling my strings. "Okay he sucked."

"See that's progress. I knew you could do it, cuz. Look, now that I'm getting some nightly, my goal is to get you some too. No more crazy stalkers, no more idiot photogs, and no more boring farm boys too obsessed with Lana," she said, her voice a bit forced.

Of course Lois was still miffed over Clark going back to Lana default. How cute. She could join the club. Lord knew I was the charter member.

"Maybe."

"Oh, I can find you tall, dark, handsome and into you."

I laughed, genuinely this time. "Alright, I'll be your test case. You figure that out and you can go into matchmaking, get a lot more than you do now for reporting. Back up for when papers fold."

"Not likely," she said. "Ollie bought me the paper in July. I'd be the last fired."

I resisted my urge to groan. I loved Lois but she had no idea how to deal with certain things, like why mixing business and personal with editors and paper owners was bad. I appreciated her spunk and her big heart, but one day it was gonna get her in trouble. Maybe even with too aggressive billionaires.

"Chlo?"

"Lo, I'm thrilled for you."

"Well, come on out. That bitch Tess is as bad as Lex ever was. Wouldn't know a decent story if it bit her on the ass. Let's be the two musketeers again. Ollie will let you back in a heartbeat."

"Kind of doubt that and there were three musketeers."

"Same dif. Love you, talk tomorrow?"

"Always."

"Oh, and tell Smallville glad he's back in Kansas, even if he had some weird quarter life crisis and ended up leaving the DP. He's not a bad guy but he is so freaking weird."

Chloe laughed. "That, Lois, really is an uncontested fact."

No sooner had I hung up than Tess sauntered through the door like she owned the place. She didn't, but it wasn't lost on me that Lex's money, post-embezzlement, had set us up and she often poached the kids I couldn't save for the group Clark had once mockingly called "Injustice."

"Chloe, how is he?"

"Tess, we saw you yesterday. Just because you know and because I was desperate doesn't mean we're going to have team meetings. Do you get that."

"So just like Lex then? You use me for my resources, and then kick me out. Chloe, what will it take to make you trust me? Is going to Peru on a dime not enough, maybe even helping save Clark's hand."

I shuddered and she fixed that intense gaze on me again. "It had to be amputated."

"What hospital would you take him to?"

"I didn't do it myself, but I don't have to tell you those things. The cold will pass, and his powers will be back in about thirteen days or so. The infection's from the Phantom Zone, some very venomous Kryptonian creature."

"And it couldn't be stopped."

"It was lose the hand or lose his life."

"Fuck," Tess swore. "If he needs anything, I can provide the best therapists for recovery."

"Tess, please, I'll talk with you this week. We'll figure out where you fit with me and Clark, and, well, how much we really trust you. If Martha wants to take your offer, she will. Is that okay?"

"I know but I hate that there are caveats on your trust. That's beneath me."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "I've been protecting him for four years. I've seen Lionel, Lex, Brainac, Zod, and this Beast all toy with him, among others. I know he's usually superstrong, but he's not that bright about keeping himself out of trouble. It takes a long time to trust people and even Lionel and Lex both shivved him in the end. You have to understand our history with LuthorCorp heads is shitty, to say the least."

"Lex was an abusive manipulative asshole who learned from the master."

"I hope you really believe that," I said, running a hand through my hair. "I...well, I already told Martha. She's making arrangements and will be in Smallville in two days. You can come by the farm this weekend. Talk Martha into whatever you think you can wrangle," I grinned genuinely. "Besides, she's way more protective of Clark than I am. She'll like you less."

"You, Sullivan, are a bitch," Tess smirked. "I like that."

"Yeah, sometimes I think Clark has a type, somehow," I breezed. "Anyway if that's all?"

Tess nodded and then her phone rang. She held up her hand and shrugged. "I have to take this."

"Uh, great, my oficina is su oficina," I replied, wondering when my demeanor went from bulldog reporter to walking doormat. My life needed serious freaking adjustments.

"Mercer here. What? Are you sure, Otis? Alright, we'll be there." She shut off her phone and any humor at all was gone from her voice. "Chloe, get your shit. Clark's made it to Metropolis and how he drove I can't even guess."

"What? You have a tail on us?"

"No, I have an assistant who looks for weird inconsistencies. Clark Kent being admitted to Met Gen after passing out at the local penitentiary? Yeah that would be a big ding. Unless you want doctors to examine him who aren't even mine?"

Was that a pout?

"Alright," I replied, forcing my fear down. I could worry later. Right now I could kill Clark for doing whatever the fuck he thought he was doing.

If he thought that muppet from the Phantom Zone was harsh, then he'd forgotten how pissed off I could get.


End file.
